[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

Yup - the expansion rules were generous but the bigger part of it was teams also made horrible decisions.

If the three teams above don't do anything wonky the Knights end up with:

Florida: Petrovic
Columbus: Josh Anderson
Minnesota: Dumba

Plus some other teams made mistakes too:

Pittsburgh: Paying a 2nd to have them take Fleury instead of Murray
Anaheim: Trade Theodore instead of letting them take Vatanen or Manson
Tampa Bay: 2nd, 4th, Gusev for them to take Garrison

Really look at who they took and the roster wasn't that great, it was all mistakes of teams paying assets to protect the wrong people. https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...ion-draft-now/

It's the net of those trades that made the Knights a contender, not the expansion draft itself:

Marchessault, Smith, Karlsson, Tuch, Haula, Fleury, Theodore, 1st, 2 2nds

for

Petrovic, Anderson, Dumba, Murray, & Manson

Doesn't really look like they would be a contender anymore does it?

Not to mention, with the exception of Fleury, nobody predicted that every one of those guys would turn out to be a diamond in the rough, except maybe GMGM and even then.

Vegas could have easily been a team with four 3rd lines, like most people predicted. Then they’d be in no mans land drafting 14th every year with only mediocre roster players.

Instead they have a stacked team with loads of draft picks. Seems like excellent drafting to me. (Including exp draft when I use that term)