[Mathgod]

This is on the GMs and not the draft rules IMO.

They gave Vegas the chance to get teams 6th or 7th best forwards, or 4th or 5th best dman.

But then teams made mistakes or didnt evaluate the talent on their team properly.

Why did Florida give up Smith and Marchessault...they could have protected both of them. Better protect Alex Petrovic or Mark Pysyk instead.

And really it’s that one deal that completely changed the path of the Knights. Instead of getting a #5 dman from Florida they received not one but two top line forwards that were 25 goal guys previously.

Honestly if you want to blame anyone blame Dale Tallon.

When you force teams to make difficult decisions and only protect certain players, mistakes are inevitably going to be made by some teams. There were 30 GMs forced into this dilemma, so to think that all 30 were going to going to be flawless in their assessments of which players to protect, is naive at best.

The protection format should have been, at the very least, 12 skaters and 2 goalies per team. That way the Knights would not have been given all kinds of leverage to pick quality players and acquire more through trades. They also wouldn't have been likely to get their hands on a goaltender who had a proven track record of being capable of providing superb goaltending on any given night.

Originally Posted by Igottago

The whine is incredible, funny, and sad all at the same time. Its completely illogical. I cant remember the post but one guy even said the NHL put together a "juggernaut" in Vegas. Its a team that has had everything come together in near miraculous fashion, not a team loaded with hall of famers. That's why things like intangibles matter -- its the chemistry that gets weaker teams to outperform supposedly stronger teams.

You can't make up the level of irrationality with some of these posts. Not sure how the NHL is supposed to just stop teams from winning because you don't think its fair. In no way was this team constructed to go this far. Get a grip.

The fact that they won their division with 109 points, and are poised to win the Stanley Cup, is proof that they absolutely were. The fact that not many predicted this outcome is beside the point.

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Did you happen to catch LeBron destroy the Raptors? It happens.

I don't watch basketball for that reason.