Vegas won the Cup the old-fashioned way: They earned it

The narrative that the Golden Knights were gifted a championship with favourable expansion rules is not only lazy, it's completely without basis

“This franchise will have incredible success and perhaps you’ll have the chance to boo me when I present the Stanley Cup.”
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman when he introduced the expansion Vegas Golden Knights in 2016

When Bettman handed the Stanley Cup to the Vegas Golden Knights captain Mark Stone Tuesday night, he was not lustily booed for the first time in forever. Clearly, the fandom in the desert has some learning to do when it comes to hockey etiquette. They knew to toss hats on the ice when Stone completed his hat trick, but not booing Bettman is a grievous offence.

Of course, there is no shortage of those who believe they should have been tossing rose petals while a team of eunuchs carried the commissioner out to centre ice in a litter like a reigning potentate, since the narrative surrounding Vegas for some people has always been that Bettman and the NHL gifted the Golden Knights a Stanley Cup with the most favourable expansion draft rules in league history. Because when you pay $500 million to be part of the NHL board of governors annual croquet game, you should expect to be handed an instant contender. So when you connect the conspiratorial dots, you come the conclusion that the Cup was bought and paid for with Bill Foley’s pile of money.

The only problem is that narrative is that it’s lazy and misguided. Yes, the Golden Knights were dealt a better hand compared to their expansion predecessors, but to suggest the NHL was responsible for any of this is ridiculous. The league didn’t hand the Golden Knights a Cup in Year 6 any more than it did to the Philadelphia Flyers, who did it in seven years.

But if you subscribe to this theory, it would be on the basis that the league gave the Golden Knights a Stanley Cup team out of the gate. Because after that, all they did was go about their business and build a contending team. They made the bold moves, bringing in new and dynamic players every season until they found a championship formula. But let’s assume the expansion draft was the reason for all of this. Before we do that, let’s look at the group of players the Golden Knights used in their first-ever game on Oct. 6, 2018, the night James Neal scored two third-period goals to give the Golden Knights their first-ever NHL victory. (Current Golden Knights in bold):

GOALIES: Marc-Andre Fleury, Malcolm Subban.
DEFENCEMEN: Deryk Engelland, Jason Garrison, Brayden McNabb, Colin Miller, Luca Sbisa, Nate Schmidt. (Shea Theodore was out with an injury).
FORWARDS: Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, William Carrier, Cody Eakin, Erik Haula, William Karlsson, Brendan Leipsic, Oscar Lindberg, Jonathan Marchessault, James Neal, Tomas Nosek, David Perron, Reilly Smith.

Does that look like a juggernaut to you? Perhaps in the American Hockey League, but not in the NHL. Nobody who would have predicted that a team that started with that roster would be in the Stanley Cup final. In fact, my pal and former colleague at The Hockey News, Matt Larkin, predicted that the Golden Knights wouldn’t have 10 wins by Christmas. Turns out they had 15 by American Thanksgiving. The Golden Knights were given a decent, competitive team, one that realistically should have been in a life-and-death fight for the playoffs. And let’s not forget that as part of this supposedly sweet deal, the Golden Knights were given the sixth overall pick in the 2017 draft, which they used to pick Cody Glass. With the exception of the league’s first foray into expansion in 1967, no expansion team had ever selected lower than fifth in its first draft and the vast majority had a choice in one of the top two. Had the Golden Knights picked in the top five in 2017, they almost certainly would have had a chance to take one of Nico Hischier, Miro Heiskanen, Cale Makar or Elias Pettersson. Think about that for a minute.

No, the NHL did not gift the Golden Knights a Stanley Cup. The rival GMs who tried to outsmart the expansion draft and subsequently got fleeced by George McPhee did. If you need any further proof of that, just look at the team the Golden Knights vanquished in the final. The Florida Panthers gave Vegas Reilly Smith so they would select Jonathan Marchessault instead of defenceman Alex Petrovic, who hasn’t played in the NHL in four seasons and finished up this season with the Texas Stars of the AHL. The Anaheim Ducks traded Shea Theodore to the Golden Knights in exchange for not selecting the unprotected Sami Vatanen or Josh Manson. The Minnesota Wild dealt Alex Tuch – whom the Golden Knights ultimately leveraged to get Jack Eichel – so they would take Erik Haula.

When you think about it, much of the success of the Golden Knights comes from the fact that they started with a blank canvas, much the way the Coachella Valley Firebirds did in the AHL this season. The Firebirds currently lead the Calder Cup final 2-1 and have been a dominant team in the AHL this season, largely because the parent Seattle Kraken had the contract freedom to sign a bunch of veteran players to short-term, two-way deals with salaries between $200,000 and $400,000 in the minors, players whom the Kraken likely never expected would play for them, but would be very good players in the AHL.

It's amazing what you can do when you start without any baggage in the form of bad contracts. It’s also pretty startling what you can accomplish with two very aggressive GMs – first McPhee, then Kelly McCrimmon – neither of whom has ever been afraid to swing for the fences in trades or in free agent signings. Don’t forget that just last season, the Golden Knights missed the playoffs and fired their coach. They were forced to trade Max Pacioretty – and throw defenceman Dylan Coghlan into the deal – for nothing. They lost their No. 1 goalie, then their No. 2 goalie, and won the Stanley Cup behind the outstanding play of a career backup. For as much of a player-friendly culture the Golden Knights have created, they’ve also proven to be ruthless when it comes to parting with core players. That might not make them many friends, but this is not a popularity contest.

The Vegas Golden Knights are Stanley Cup champions because of all the things that make any team a champion – solid and stable ownership, aggressive and creative thinkers in management and a lot of luck. They’ve just done it quicker than any other team ever has. Sure, they had some help from the NHL, but in the end, they won the Cup the old-fashioned way. They earned it.