Vegas striptease just the start if new guys play cards right
The reality of the 31st NHL team is now upon us, with the Vegas Golden Knights set to take real shape this week with the expansion draft on Wednesday and first round of the entry draft in Chicago on Friday night. It’s the first time the NHL has expanded in 17 years, which doesn’t really explain why it’s doing so now, other than the $500 million the other 30 teams get to split among themselves.
Understand this: None of this will make the NHL better to watch for you, the fan. It’ll make it a shade worse, as talent is spread a little thinner.
The NHL has always been about adding teams and telling you it’s making itself better by “growing the game,” and its promotional arm has become much adept at generating that message in recent years. Twinning the arrival of Vegas this week with “exciting” new Adidas team jerseys — more merchandise to sell! — shows the skilful way the league packages revenue-enhancing manoeuvres as progress these days.
The personnel options available to Vegas general manager George McPhee this week, meanwhile, are interesting, although media folks intent on turning this into a momentous occasion have got a little too breathless about the entire process. We’ve had many expansion drafts before, but suddenly this one’s being packaged like a critically important event.
Why? Well, partly because the hockey media industry has changed significantly in the past five years, with the league (NHL.com) and teams now controlling a significant slice of the reports and commentary about major NHL events. Vegas has hired a seasoned Canadian journalist to spearhead the production of information and stories the Golden Knights want to generate for the Vegas community and beyond. The Dallas Stars have, too.
All this comes while hockey media jobs across the continent are drying up, with many unemployed journalists going to work for NHL.com. What that means is less independent reporting, many fewer critical pieces, and more public relationsstyle information packaged to look like journalism. The growth of an intriguing online sports media organization — The Athletic — in Chicago, Toronto and now Detroit is the only noteworthy increase in independent reporting and subscription-based journalism.
That’s all a bit depressing, but it’s reality. Factor it into what you read, hear and see. Factor it into reports this week about the new Vegas franchise.
As expected, the other 30 clubs didn’t leave much for McPhee in the expansion draft, despite all the proclamations from commissioner Gary Bettman that the Knights would have the ability to be competitive right away.
No, they won’t. Nor should they want to be.
McPhee has two priorities right now:
One, finding a way to get the most draft picks and prospects out of the expansion draft process. People can get all excited about James Neal being available to the Knights on Wednesday if they want, but players picked that day are simply acquired to be parlayed into other assets. The cheaper and shorter their contracts are, the easier they are to flip. You can probably expect the Knights will draft as many as seven goalies on Wednesday to later redistribute around the league.
Two, McPhee needs to get Vegas the highest possible draft pick in 2018, when the draft is expected to be significantly more fruitful than this year. The Golden Knights fell to the sixth overall pick this month after the draft lottery, and get the third pick in every subsequent round. So they’ll get prospects, but not a franchise player.
Next year, their draft position will be determined by how they finish in their first year and the lottery. To get where owner Bill Foley wants to go, the Knights need to pick first or second next year, and the same the year after. That’s the only way you get the Evgeni Malkins, Connor McDavids and Patrick Kanes of the world.
Getting to those draft positions isn’t helped by being competitive right out of the gate. It’s achieved by being one of the NHL’s worst teams. That’s where McPhee needs to steer this ship.
McPhee, a very experienced hockey man, is keenly aware of all this. Remember, he directed the teardown of Washington’s roster in 2004 so the Caps could tank and end up with Alex Ovechkin. He understands the realpolitik of building an NHL winner.
McPhee knows that as he prepares to accumulate assets this week, he’s got 15 to 20 other teams all packed tightly, all spending close to the cap, all willing to pay for the chance to take the same run at the Cup the Predators took this year.
The Islanders have already paid him a ransom of a first-round pick to lay off certain players in the expansion draft. Talk is Columbus has done the same. The Leafs might be willing to give him something of significance to acquire Matt Dumba or Sami Vatanen.
It’s a completely different world than Minnesota and Columbus entered in 2000, the last time the NHL expanded. Doug Risebrough and Doug MacLean, back when rich teams could spend two or three times more on players than they could, didn’t have the options and flexibility that McPhee has this week. McPhee knows he doesn’t need to build a great team to win the Cup that Foley covets, but he does need two or three elite talents, stars he can only acquire through the entry draft.
At the same time, he needs to keep up appearances that Vegas is doing all it can to deliver wins to its new fan base until the Golden Knights honeymoon wears off in three or four years.
He’ll also have to make sure his enthusiastic owner, new to hockey, doesn’t get too revved up about winning in the short term. After working for Ted Leonsis, McPhee is surely aware of the potential pitfalls of dealing with very involved proprietors.
So don’t focus too much this week on what the Knights get in terms of recognizable names. Focus more on how McPhee, handed extraordinary power and influence for a period of seven days, uses that power and influence to set up Vegas for the future, not its inaugural season. He’ll try to sell his cap space, taking on bad contracts like Arizona has done, for future assets.
Look for Vegas to have upwards of four first-round picks this Friday if McPhee gets done what he wants to get done.
The talk all week will be about Vegas trying to be a good team right away. But don’t believe it. That’s not what McPhee is trying to accomplish. Damien Cox is the co-host of Prime Time Sports on Sportsnet 590 The FAN. He spent nearly 30 years covering sports for the Star. Follow him @DamoSpin. His column appears Tuesday and Saturday.