LAS VEGAS – It was a night unlike any the NHL has ever seen. The Vegas Golden Knights are off and running with 10 trades, 14 defencemen and an all-star goaltender who already appears to be a fan favourite at T-Mobile Arena.
George McPhee’s approach to the expansion draft was far more about tomorrow than today.
He held true to his word about letting rival NHL teams pay their way out of potential issues in the expansion draft, stockpiling a ton of draft picks in exchange for not selecting certain players. The Golden Knights now own the Nos. 6, 13 and 15 selections in Friday’s draft and clearly hope to build a homegrown winner here over time.
“This was an intense experience,” McPhee said Wednesday night. “I think we got it right.”
Only time will tell if this was the best use of an incredibly unique opportunity to control the redistribution of players around the league. McPhee was originally concerned that the expansion rules would prompt teams to trade their way out of roster issues – robbing him of the chance to land quality players – but he ended up getting ahead of the market by asking any general managers he lined up trades with not to make any other separate deals.
As a result, there was just one trade completed last week: The Jonathan Drouin for Mikhail Sergachev swap between the Canadiens and Lighting.
That left the floor open for Vegas and they completed 10 deals around Wednesday’s expansion draft alone. Once the roster freeze is lifted at 8 a.m. on Thursday, they are expected to start flipping away some of the excess defencemen claimed in expansion.
When all is said and done, their amateur scouts will be armed with plenty of opportunities to stockpile the cupboards. They are heading to Chicago with 12 picks this weekend. They’ve also added future assets, including a 2020 second-rounder from the Pittsburgh Penguins to guarantee they’d select goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
The roots of that deal go back several months to when Fleury quietly waived his no-move clause for the expansion draft prior to the March 1 trade deadline. McPhee knew the immensely popular Penguins player would be in his crease even while watching Fleury win a third Stanley Cup this spring.
“He wanted to come here,” said McPhee. “He kept letting us know he wanted to come here.”
The largest roar from an enthusiastic crowd came when Fleury stepped onto the stage wearing the Golden Knights grey home sweater. It had only been 10 days since he hoisted the Cup at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
Talk about a brave new world.
“I definitely wasn’t expecting that, to have such a warm welcome,” said Fleury. “I’m kind of stepping into the unknown here a little bit.”
It was a strange sight for former teammates Sidney Crosby and Carl Hagelin, not to mention Penguins owner Mario Lemieux. They were all in attendance and made a point of seeking Fleury out to wish him well.
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He will start as the No. 1 man for a Golden Knights team that also selected Calvin Pickard and J-F Berube to play behind him.
Vegas also took the minimum number of forwards – 14 – while stocking up heavily on blue-liners. The belief internally is that those players will be most easily flipped for other assets and it’s believed that a handful of trades have already been agreed to in principle.
Some of the picks made will essentially be throwaways – Winnipeg Jets winger Chris Thorburn, for example, is a pending unrestricted free agent and no extension has been reached.
You only need 23 players on the active roster and most of the players selected here would require waivers before being sent to the American Hockey League. So while this is glimpse of what the team might look like in October, it’s far from the complete picture.
“I think we’re going to be competitive,” said defenceman Brayden McNabb, taken from the Los Angeles Kings. “There’s a lot of good players that we selected and some young guys, too. You know we’ve got great goaltending, so it starts there. It will be fun.”
There are plenty of veterans who will be leaned on to start building the proper culture immediately.
Marc Methot – a highly regarded defenceman from the Ottawa Senators – stands out among them, assuming he isn’t moved elsewhere. Cody Eakin (Dallas), Jason Garrison (Tampa), Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (Philadelphia) and Deryk Engelland (Calgary) – a Vegas resident who once played for the ECHL’s Wranglers – are some of the others.
Goals will be toughest to come by, but owner Bill Foley said he came away most surprised by the quality of forwards they were able to procure. James Neal and Jonathan Marchessault are both former 30-goal men. Reilly Smith is a season removed from scoring 25.
After a year of preparation and 72 hours of working through the expansion draft selection process, Vegas is finally real. This is an organization with assets and a sweater. The $500-million fee is being distributed to the other 30 teams and their full schedule will be released Thursday.
They won’t be a threat to win the Pacific Division in the inaugural season, but they’ve got a chance to build something special. They’ve certainly got a head start on building through the draft.
“We really felt like we were 100 per cent prepared,” said Foley. “We did well with a few trades and a few negotiations. George did a great job in terms of upgrading our position. …
“We were able to move assets around.”
