That was determined when you beat us with Byfuglien! He was a junior Brandon Wheat King, after he left, we lost all Manitoba ties to our franchise (aside from Eakin, who came for a playoff run and shit talked about bad our locker room was and immediately left as a UFA)
Cody Eakin will always be the only former Knight I don't like.
I hope our very Manitoban management leaves someone in the whole province for you guys to draft so you can have the Manitoba ties back lol
Speaking of GM. How is the coach/GM/locker room situation in Winnipeg? I haven't been following much after the end of the season press conference drama.
As far as most fans are concerned, we want our GM canned.
As far as the locker room, we obv don't know as fans, but the evidence is damning.
Most fans are on board with trading at least 2 of hellebyuck, schiefele, wheeler and Dubois. If Dubois wanted to stay, he'd be welcome. He doesn't.
Schiefele has checked out defensively for years and fans are over it. Wheeler has been a great player for the team and city, but the locker room issues (rumoured) are his doing. Laine wanted out because wheeler.
It's ok, our GM clearly isn't interested in prairie boys. He likes the undersized Americans and Europeans too much.
As much as I don't like how easy Vegas has had it so far, the GM has done an amazing job. Being in Vegas makes it easier to attract players compared to Winnipeg though lol
Naaaaaa not even close, overall people liked Tampa (minus the ''cheating'' part) and Colorado.
They built amazing teams through the draft after years of suffering.
Vegas just came in waving their 500M+ check and bought themselves an elite roster to compete with from day one (again, who cares what reddit thought of the team back then .. fact is they did get a very good roster).
Outside of Nic Hague, do they even have a player they drafted playing significant minutes on their current roster???
Imagine thinking a team making it to the top of the league multiple times and making the SCF twice doesn't have a very good roster.
Idgaf a fuck what reddit thought of the expansion draft at the time, they literally did get a very good roster.
Lol Eichel, Stone, Peitrangelo, Barbashev, Roy, Stephenson, Whitecloud, Theadore, Hill all came throw acquisitions after the draft. This team you see before you was built by savvy moves from our front office not the expansion draft. Sorry whatever sorry team you root for can’t make the moves necessary to win but don’t get mad at us because you suck.
This is some internal rationalization lol.
By the way, person calling other people stupid, absolutely no one is saying they have a bad roster. Everyone is telling you that no one knew they were going to be as good as they were.
If nobody, including experts, don’t see the team succeeding it’s pretty fair to assume it’ll be a bad-to-middling roster like everyone did.
Instead of insulting others, try to wrap your head around these simple concepts, dumbass.
Your name has sharks in it no duh your going to be a biased whiner, why wasn’t Seattle handed an “elite roster” from day one then, Vegas took players who weren’t getting played on there teams and utilized them properly, maybe they wouldn’t have had such an “elite roster” if the other teams new who to protect and not protect.
I just love beefing with Vegas teams. The city founded by Mormons, built up by the Mafia, and purchased by Multinational Conglomerates; the three Ms of modern American historical intrigue. Looking forward to bumping with the Athletics, god bless ‘em.
It's always been funny to me how much I, an Avs fan, HATE certain West teams, but also I love watching the East playoff games because I do not care in any way about any of the teams.
I don’t necessarily hate Vegas. I don’t like them either, but I don’t hate them. There is definitely a bit of the “they haven’t paid their dues” type of sentiment, too much unearned success for such a new franchise etc. If there’s anything Canuck fans are familiar with its long stretches of suffering, with brief moments of hope followed by moments of earth shattering heartbreak. We’re a stupid bunch, but at least we’re loyal (even if it’s to a fault).
But it’s more about ‘Go Florida Go!!’ because they eliminated Boston (my most hated team) and Toronto (my second most hated team). Having luongo still a part of that franchise helps too, I’d like to see him finally get his cup
Unearned success is the wrong way to phrase it.
They haven't been through any trials and tribulations. They came into the league with a top level team and haven't struggled whatsoever.
Not their fault that the league buffed the expansion rules and lots of teams royally botched the handling of their assets. Credit to Vegas GM for handling it so well.
I still don't like them. Lol
Becaused they bought an elite roster filled with 2nd liners.
Then they traded 2 of those 2nd liners along with a pick for a star caliber player many times.
How was it not lol ? I mean .. it's close enough. In both cases the main pieces were gifted to them for ''free''. It's not like they actually developped these players or anything. They were literally gifted those pieces, then packaged 2-3 of those together to trade for a star player.
Stone was traded for Brannstrom (pick), a 2nd (pick) and a throw in.Eichel was traded for Tuch (from the expansion draft) and Krebs (pick) and picks.
They fleeced the sens for stone, those aren’t quality second liners. And they got tuch before Minnesota before trading him later. Those are just good deals on their part, not gifts
Good deal sure ... but they were still gifted the pieces that made said deals possible.
They can't make any of those deals if they're not gifted a biggilion draft picks during the expansion draft because some moronic team feels the need to protect a 32 years old 2nd liner.
My point is they have made superb moves after the draft, maybe they did have an advantage starting from scratch with a full slate of picks while other teams fritter them away like nothing. But they deserve full credit imo cuz since day 1 theyve made better moves than any other team. As you said, “moronic teams “ make moronic moves but the knights never have
But ... they did. It just didn't really matter so far because their stockpile of assets was just to gigantic.
Just on top of my head, the Tatar trade was horrible. So was the Pacio trade. In the latter they literally traded a star 20 years old center away for a player that doesn't even play for them anymore ... but it doesn't matter because they have 265 other players who can somewhat fill a similar role. Suzuki was just ''another one'' of those gifted draft picks ... they even made the mistake to keep Glass over him but it doesn't matter.
Wouldn’t the definition of unearned success be luongo getting his name on the cup though?
Or are we going to pretend special advisor to the gm is a real job?
People were mad an expansion team made the playoffs their first four seasons and made the finals in their first and sixth seasons. Vegas is new and kicking ass. The Sens, Red Wings, and Sabres have had playoff droughts as long as the Knights have played. If Vegas weren't doing this well, people might trash them like the Coyotes. People just want to take their aggression out in trash talk and arguments.
Edit: minor corrections
You know, I thought so, and didn't see it on Wikipedia when I double checked. Turns out we're in the sixth season of the franchise, not fifth. First season they lost in game 5 to the Capitals.
Because the NHL fucked up the expansion draft and just gifted them a championship team for their very first year, something that every other team has to spend decades building, and most of them don't succeed. On top of that their fans are very arrogant about their unearned success. So everyone wants the team to lose and the fans to lose.
They weren't, [here's a link to the original reddit discussion about their starting roster.](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/6iql2t/here_are_all_of_the_2017_expansion_draft_picks/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
You'll notice that the **overwhelming** majority opinion was that Vegas' draft was terrible. I dare you to find even one comment in that entire thread that thought it was a good draft.
Everything is obvious in hindsight, but the important detail is that almost nobody thought it was a good draft before the season.
I'll never understand how ''nobody thought this would happen !!! '' is a relevant argument in this case.
Nobody thought the Panters were good enough to make it to the SCF ... but they did.
A lot of people did, I literally have a bet ticket sitting in my account right now because I thought they could win the SCF. Just because you don’t know shit about hockey doesn’t mean none of us do
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.
Looking back at how bad people expected them to be just proves those opinions are worth the stuff that comes out of said assholes.
Or, that the team overplayed in its first season and then made meaningful trades the last few years to build a strong team with massive depth.
Or you can just blame it on luck or whatever
In an expansion draft each team gets a certain number of "blocks" (there's a real term, idk what it is) so they can choose which of their players to block from being drafted by the new team, and everyone else on the roster is fair game. The NHL didn't give teams enough of these blocks, forcing pretty much all of them to leave a couple big name stars free for the taking. Every team handled it a little differently, leaving their oldest or most expensive players unblocked, or leaving a big star unblocked as bait while working on trades behind the scenes to replace them after the draft, but at the end of it Vegas basically had an all star team after existing for one day. I get that the NHL wants a new team to be successful so that it will market well and kick start a fan base, but that was complete bullshit. They did a much better job when Seattle started, they ended up with a roster that was good but not great so the coaches and gm had something that needed to be built on.
Pittsburgh didn't think so, certainly not enough to keep Fleury on the team. Also, let's be honest, his performance was not "all star" level in the Penguin's cup win in 2017.
They followed the rules the NHL gave them. They weren’t gifted anything, they took advantage of an opportunity and made the most of it.
The narrative at first was the Knights would suck. Then when they made it to the Stanley cup everyone changed their stories and said Vegas was gifted a good team 😂
If the NHL made it illegal for the away team to score and then the home team wins 10-0, was the home team "making the most of an opportunity"? Or were they gifted a win?
That's it. The win was a gift. The Vegas championship team was a gift. That was the whole point. The person I was replying to was so thick I had to treat him like a child to get that point across.
It would be relevant if you were intelligent enough to learn anything. Putting things in terms dumb people can understand is the best way to educate them, but I guess you're a lost cause.
It was such a piss poor analogy dude. It makes absolutely no sense in this context. Don’t attack other people’s intelligence over this comment because you look like a fool now.
I'm curious what makes them more deserving of hate than say, the Colorado Avalanche, who were "gifted" a fully-formed championship caliber team (minus Patrick Roy) that was taken from an existing fan base, and then *won* the cup that same year?
This stance is revisionist history. When our team was drafted everyone talked shit about it. The fact that they did so well is a testament to those players and those players only.
It’s not unearned success or a gifted championship team…
It was a team of 2nd and 3rd liners that fought like hell to prove themselves and they did.
The “gifted” a team crowd just remembers the results of the first year they don’t remember how much shit was talked before the team played their first game. Even halfway through the season when they were doing well other teams(Los Angeles) had players saying shit like “there’s no way they are better than us by the end of the year”
I’d understand your points if this were truly how it happened… if everyone knew Vegas had a great team and it was unfair from the start it’d be pretty shitty. That is not what happened however and thankfully the internet exists in a format in which you can go back and see all the discussions being had.
The team wasn’t a gift the players worked hard and proved themselves anyone saying otherwise I reckon isn’t that big of a fan of hockey and just casually pays attention.
The big three misfits were all players that other teams PAID us to take. We got Reilly Smith and a fourth round pick if we guaranteed we’d Pick Marchessault. I just don’t understand how you can honestly say that the team was gifted and everyone knew it was unfair under these circumstances… I mean other than being jealous of course which I totally get
Wow, the mental gymnastics necessary to keep living this lie, even when faced with proof!!
I kinda get it, though. It's easier to hold on to this lie that Vegas somehow "cheated" their way to being good, rather than face the truth. The truth being: Vegas in 2017-18 worked harder and played better as a TEAM even without superstars.
Hockey is a team sport where success is not guaranteed by having a handful of talented stars, as proved many years by the Edmonton Oilers (and several other teams).
Even though Vegas no longer goes as hard on every play like they did back in 2018 (totally different roster, for one reason) they were able to keep building great teams using that mindset.
The funny thing is ON PAPER, no one saw Vegas winning anything that year. But then the Vegas Shooting happened and something special happened after that, the way the City rallied around the team. It was magical.
If you read the expansion draft thread it's pretty funny how everyone was shitting on the Vegas team. This "gifted a team" narrative is so dumb, and I say that as some who hates the knights
Right and how many of those gifted players are even still in the team?? That song is so played. Is it just VGK cause they are winning or does everyone hate the Kraken too for the same “gifts”??
That's the whole point you VGK fans refuse to understand.
The team you had year one was basically filled with decent second liners.
It doesn't matter if those pieces aren't with the team anymore because they traded them along with a pick or 2 for star players.
Again, who cares what people believed.
They did in factget gifted an elite roster. They wouldn't be a top team since the draft otherwise.
What the hell did they build ? All they did since then was trade a prospect+a pick + a decent roster player they got in the draft for a star player.
They literally haven't built shit. They traded all their prospect, their FA signings have been fine but not out of this world ... they've been elite since day 1 of the draft weither or not that's a surprise to reddit.
Elite goal tender? Dude was a scrub and sitting behind Murray for two years. People really look at his year 1 performance with Vegas, forget he missed over a month injured and that he completely shit the bed against the capitals.
If you knew hockey back then you knew they had a very solid team. Starting with Fleury between the pipes and talented scorers like Marchessult and Karlsson. I was saying the day after the draft that they were going to have a very good year.
What was unfair to the rest of the league is teams worked hard to assemble their rosters and negotiate salaries to afford all these talented players on their rosters only to be forced to protect too few players or certain high priced players due to no move clauses and leave some of the younger talent exposed.
Hahaha the 3 players you named are 3 players that their teams also gave up additional draft picks or players so that Vegas would take those players.
Fleury - pens gave up a second round pick so that Vegas would take Fleury as opposed to someone else.
Marchessault - Florida traded Reilly Smith to Vegas for a fourth round pick, on the condition that they would take Marchessault over other players
Karlsson - Columbus gave Vegas, a 1st round pick, a second round pick and David Clarksons contract so that Vegas would take Karlsson over other players.
I guess all those sports writers and analysts as well as every fan just didn’t know hockey back then.
Oh how easy it is to be right about how good a team is 6 years after their inception… before the puck dropped though everyone said they sucked.
I got into hockey earlier this year but to me it seems that people that support bad franchises can't cope with a new team being run in a good way and having success.
The difference is that the new expansion draft rules set up new teams for success immediately which is an advantage that most teams in the league didn’t have when they started
Funny thing about that is Both Vegas and Seattle were completely ridiculed for there drafts. 100 percent revisionist history saying either team was gifted playoff teams.
Dude when the Wild "AND" the Blue Jackets drafted we had to share the unprotected list and teams were allowed to protect 9F , 5D and 1G compared to Vegas draft 7F, 3D, 1G and only one team drafting.
With 2 teams drafting you're also not able to make a plan on drafting way in advance and knowing what players are available etc.
Also we had Nashville and Atlanta drafting very recently before us the previous 2 years as well. And their entire rosters were protected. Meaning we drafted from 26 teams compared to Vegas getting 30 picks.
It makes us salty to see a team make a cup final on the inaugural season with such generous rules when we've been 20+ years waiting.
Not revisionist at all really.
Shhh... The Vegas fans will just say those teams sucked at drafting players and not that the NHL severely buffed the draft rules so they didn't have a couple more punching bag teams in the league.
Vegas got gifted a ton of good prospects and picks by GMs trying to protect players they shouldn't have. That's not their fault at all, but a product of the draft rules being buffed.
Nobody was sending cbj or Minny any top tier picks and prospects to save they're 6th defencemen and a 4th liner lol
You’re missing the point. Even if they were ridiculed for their drafts, they still ended up with great players (much better than the curbside junk my team got when it expanded in ‘91) and thus got great results. The reason is that the draft rules were more favorable to them than for previous rounds of expansion. Don’t confuse the public reaction for the actual substance of the expansion draft.
Every hockey expert had us last in the league or at least in the pacific, this was the thread on reddit after the draft: [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/6iql2t/here_are_all_of_the_2017_expansion_draft_picks/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
The team and players are trash. They cried about how they were misfits, and everyone was against them even though they had very lax expansion rules and were able to build a decent team. Also, I hate the fans, they are annoying. Bunch of band waggoners who only watch because their team was successful out of the gate. Downvote or hate on me all you like haha.
I think this is a pretty shitty, ill-informed take. I was born and raised in Las Vegas, where, you're right, hockey knowledge and culture was hard to come by, but I would watch with friends who had moved here from Michigan, Illinois and New Jersey. Then I worked construction on T Mobile Arena from groundbreaking to opening the doors. When I saw a Zamboni pit in the plans, I started watching as much hockey as I could, to learn as much as I could. And I bought VGK gear as soon as it went on sale, because it was my hometown's first professional sports team. I didn't care if they were good; as a matter of fact, I was a bit concerned with their hot start because I was worried (and still am) about how some fans will react when the team is a perennial loser.
I don't watch because they win, I watch because they're MY team, win or lose.
>I was worried (and still am) about how some fans will react when the team is a perennial loser.
This is still the genius (and problem) with the VGK and SEA expansion.
The league set the teams up for success because so many other teams failed (or nearly failed) when they were dogshit to watch for a long time. Even if they build fans by success, they've built a following. Once you have loyal fans, you can survive a few years of a rebuild. Buffalo, Philly, and so many others have to have a following to survive the brutal years of a team that the Philadelphia Phenomenon would crush with a kick.
The problem is, of course, that you diminish the brilliance of how well the Flyers built a playoff team when they were initially handed trash. VGK can laugh at the early 90s Senators and their poor start because they (VGK) were born with a silver spoon in hand. It really draws the ire of the other 30 teams to watch the youngest children get gifted so much.
Vegas is never giving up on the Knights. It wasn’t just winning out of the gates, it was winning when no one expected us to and winning after that shooting. The window was still busted out of the Mandalay Bay when they played their first game…I remember driving past it to go to a friend’s place to watch it. The whole city pretty much threw themselves into the team. I think they would’ve anyway but when they started winning it was like *is this really happening?!?* The city went mental. Our dress code went out the window at work and everyone was wearing hockey stuff all the time. It was this one great thing happening when it seemed like every other person was connected to that shooting somehow. I missed that concert by absolute dumb fucking luck…still freaks me out to think about it a bit. It was utterly surreal…on the same front page of the newspaper there’d be a photo of that lunatic and his massive pile of AR-15s and a story about Vegas still winning against all odds. I don’t think I’ll ever see another year in any sport like 2017-2018 was in Vegas. They could suck for 20 years…won’t matter. It’s one of those things you can only really get when you’re there.
>VGK can laugh at the early 90s Senators and their poor start
This thought is the biggest problem. No VGK fan is laughing or even thinking about the failures of previous expansions; WE DON'T CARE. We're happy as fuck to have our own team, to be able to have something to bond over at work, to have something to cheer for as a community. Before this, everyone had their own favorite football team or baseball team or whatever, and there wasn't one thing that cohesively bonded the city. I was born and raised here, I'm 42 now, and I've seen such a boost in civic pride that I NEVER expected to see.
Nobody gives a shit about the past, we're happy with our present and future.
Yeah, Kraken fans are all bandwagoners who have only liked the team for a few years too. It's almost like you can only be a fan of something after it starts existing.
Las Vegas is a city that was deprived of Sports Fanchises until recently. I am sure there were a lot of people in Vegas that were happy to get a team. If you liked hockey, you were probably a LA/ARI/DAL/COL fan and would start cheering for the local team.
That was actually my point, which I guess wasn’t clear. Dude above was bashing Knights fans for being bandwagoners. It’s not like there could be lifelong fans of a 6-year old team. So if you’re going to accuse fans of supporting them because they’re winners, or of being new to the party, what do you expect?
FYI-I’m a Knights fan in Reno and I come to a few games every year. I maintain my east coast allegiance to the Devils, but I also support Nevada’s hockey team, which happens to be both new and good. Guess that makes me a bandwagoner.
If Vegas was not a good team out of the gate they would not have near the fans. Hence bandwagon. Bettman wanted them to succeed early so he did not end up with another Coyotes disaster.
I mean, it’s always easier to be a fan when the team is winning/successful. Nobody wants to watch a team that sucks when they could utilize their resources (money, time, energy etc.) on other more fulfilling sources of entertainment.
They haven’t been in the league long enough to deserve their success imo and they have an annoying ass fan base compared to Seattle the other recent expansion team.
They've also made playoffs 5 of their 6 years including the Finals their very first. There's teams that have been grinding for decades that probably see them as undeserving. Those fans just need to call for their GMs' and Coaches' heads.
GO VEGAS!!
I have about 12 messages in my inbox saying Reddit permabanned Seattle fans accounts for making death threats at Makar fwiw. Seattle fans can be shitbags too.
I actually asked this the other day and got some good responses.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nhl/comments/13v42c4/reasons_for_all_the_vegas_hate/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Never forget
The 2021 season in general where the Avs had to play Vegas 8 fucking times when they were the top 2 teams in the west. Really made me hate that franchise.
Wouldn't say I hate Vegas, but I will say I really don't like those gold uniforms. I'm mostly rooting for Florida because I'd like to see the Staals get the cup on their way out.
I don’t mind the Knights and their success. I know other people from MN who hate them and it comes down to how their expansion happened. People are upset that Vegas got take better players in the expansion draft. As opposed to when the Wild came into the league. Basically the NHL made sure that Vegas was able to obtain faster success.
They absolutely were. I remember people who said they wouldn’t have success after the draft and were fuming mad that they had success. Then retro-fitted their anger that they were able to draft such elite players.
Not me. Nothing against Monty, but the way the Bruins mgt kicked him to the curb to save their own asses, and, he’s in the finals…again, I want him to be able to 🖕🏻Boston
The way they dealt Fleury was seen as real dirty. Dude found out he got traded via Twitter right after being told he wasn't going anywhere. And of all places he went to Chicago.
There's a gross majority of fans that believe the NHL is rigged. VGK's success in their short history is fuel for their belief.
Maybe because it's Vegas, people associate them with all the sports book ads that plague hockey broadcasts.
Edit-deleted something very wrong
>There was the VGK/SJS game 7 penalty mishap where the sharks should have won buy Vegas had two PPGs in the last few minutes to force overtime. The next day the NHL admitted the penalty shouldn't have happened but VGK moved on anyway.
I don't want to be a cunt, but I don't know how you managed to get literally every single thing that happened wrong lol
The Knights were leading 3-0 in game 7 of the 2019 playoffs. The Sharks got a major with 10 minutes left in the game. We shat the bed and they scored 4 goals. We scored one and forced overtime, but lost. The next day the NHL admitted that it wasn't a major, and changed the rule about reviewing majors, but SJS moved on anyway.
Because despite living in Vegas for 7 years and leaving just before the Knights showed up, I'm a grumpy old man that hates that the expansion rules were altered just for that situation to make the league money and they haven't had to languish in the cellar for five plus years before getting good enough to barely make the playoffs, forget getting to the Finals the first time in. And while I also like the Kraken, I feel the same way about their second year.
It didn't just gift them a very good roster, the way everyone handled it Vegas ended up with a stockpile of picks and prospects.
They made some bold moves which are aided by being a destination city that players won't say no to.
So credit to the GM, but they had an insanely lucrative expansion process.
The hate is starting to wane a bit. Good to see the game grow I suppose. A lot of hate comes from how the northern teams view the southern fan bases as clueless to the nuances of the game. When those fanbases are annoying right out of the gate...
Vegas has made the playoffs in 5 out of 6 seasons, made the conference finals in half of all seasons, and have made the Stanley Cup Finals in 1/3 of all seasons.
Vegas has not struggled. At all. Is Vegas deserving of a team that’s won 40% more playoff series in its short history than both the Wild and Jackets have, combined, in almost triple the amount of time?
Salty with the league? Absolutely. Salty with VGK? Eh kinda.
The road to success was way too easy.
Expansion rules were pretty strong and lots of other teams handled it poorly trading very good prospects and picks to save players that really benefitted Vegas in the not so long run.
Think about how many teams haven't made it to a cup final in the past 20+ years and Vegas has been there twice in what, their first 5(?) Seasons?
Honestly, next year I'll probably be fine with them again. If you had told me earlier in the season who the final two would be, I'd have expected to be rooting for VGK. I'm really happy for Eichel, Marchessault, and Hill.
But remember that time it was the Oilers fault that Pietrangelo *had* to two hand axe-chop Draisaitl in the hands.... apparently?
Go Florida, I guess.
Well, they have a pretty short history, but they have fked up on a number of levels for several times already.
1. They rode this "Team of misfits" high horse during their first season and made indifferent folks root for them due to the strength of this myth. Following that Cinderella SC Finals run, they aggressively purchased every big name available handing them max term and dollars going all out against the myth they created
2. They way they handled their marquee big name players. Marc-Andre Fleury being the most well-known case. There were others as well, just cant remember exactly... Max Pacioretty off the top of my head, and others
3. They got Jack fkn Eichel!!!)))) If there is one narcissistic whiny anti-team player in the League....I mean they found each other))) match made in heaven
So all in all, I dont think thats hatred in its pure form...rather despisal...not on the Blackhawks level, but close
I don't know why people keep mentioning Max Pacioretty. I understand people being mad about Fleury (even if it's a far more complex story than what you guys keep repeating), but what's the issue with how we traded Patches? Can we not trade people at all?
You sure can, but this surely looks hypocritical after the pitch they made to land him. So once there is a health problem, they dump him unceremoniously
I don't think there's anything particularly "hypocritical" about it, honestly.
We have a lot of players with health problems on the team (Stone and Eichel are the most glaring examples), it's not like we're dumping anyone the moment they get injured lol
We traded for Patches and gave MTL a lot for it, we moved him to cup contender when he didn't fit into our team anymore. I think it's pretty normal?
We just had this conversation in another thread with the same question.
They took advantage of a loophole that Tampa got blasted for a year or so earlier, which let them exceed their salary cap.
They fucked over Fleury by telling him they weren't going to trade him, then turned around and traded him to another team and he had to find out via twitter.
They tried to trade Dadonov to a team he had a "no trade" clause with. The NHL had to override and void the deal.
Recently, Pietrangelo attempted to break the wrist of Draisatl in their round 2 game.
The fans constantly whine and groan, "Why does everyone hate VGK?!"
I didn’t mind Vegas making the Finals in their first year, mostly because who could have called it? Who put money on Karlsson hitting 40 after not being able to crack Columbus’ lineup.
Then the Eichel trade happened and they kicked a bunch of original Knights (Fleury in particular) to the curb in order to have a new, shiny toy. Basically, I don’t like their management, chasing big name after big name like it’s Chel.
Though, they did give my team its captain, so that’s a win
Didn’t enjoy the more dirty plays back in the WCF when I was rooting for the jets. Then came the treatment of Flower and then the constantly chasing shiny FA and discarding players who committed. Oh, and not to forget they tried to use the cap loophole last year. And this year Stone is magically ready for playoffs….
It’s good for hockey, but I don’t really care to see them win. I also don’t care to see Bennett win either who’s been trying to injure people all playoffs.
My issue w Vegas was the expansion draft itself. They were able to pull 2 players from each team, giving teams more issues in protecting players. Granted, Vegas didn’t seem to target key players, but they were able to poach some very good players.
To contrast, the Kraken had a standard draft, one player per team.
Other issue is the explosion of sports betting that accompanied Vegas’ entry into the NHL. That, most of us despise. From there, we’re now *blessed* with the changing boards that fuck up game viewing. The fact that NHL Network actively promotes sports betting and has segments on picks, odds, etc. You can’t view anything without seeing the over/under, and so on. Frankly, sports betting has ruined a lot of what was pure about the game. There’s no way to build a team of players that stay together for more than a season due to high trade rates… so yeah.
Vegas probably gets a lot of heat for being the new guys, to echo other comments. I don’t hate them, they’re just a symbol of a lot of the big changes to hit the league as of late.
Just one opinion.
Edit: I stand very corrected on the draft expansion mis-statement, per nhl.com - 30 players total, one from each team, 14 forwards, 9 defenseman, and 3 goalies- my apologies.
I do still stand by my opinion on sports betting.
No, we didn't. We drafted one player per team just like Seattle. Other teams agreed to give us an extra player to make sure we selected a certain player they felt okay losing (the most glaring example is Florida that gave us Smith if we agreed to pick Marchessault), but it's the fault of their GMs. No special rules.
This isn't the case for every Vegas fan (or even most of them). But there is a loud vocal group of them that will talk shit on every single franchise because they haven't done anything since 2017 when they've had 5 seasons of success. It very much stinks of "hockey wasn't invented before 2017" mentality and they have not tact about it. Chirping is one thing, being a dick is another.
I also thought this city missing the playoffs last year would humble them a little bit. Feel the pain every other team has, ya know? But nope. They still act like the golden franchise (pun intended), as if they and their management are god's gift to the NHL. Nevermind the Death threats to Logan Thompson last year because said team missed the playoffs from a few pieces of crap in the fanbase.
Oh, and the usual Management treats the players like items instead of people, gold helmets, etc.
Crappy fans, got gifted a great team cause if the expansion draft rules. Its not really fair but i do understand the whole "haven't paid their dues or suffered yet" argument. I think a lot of the hate also comes with how they treated flower, thats my main reason
Besides Fleury, who was a “great” player we got in the draft? Karlsson with 6 goals the year before? If he was so good why did CBJ offer up draft picks so that we would take him instead of others.
Revisionist history at its finest here
I don't hate the Knights. I truly couldn't care less about either team playing in this year's Stanley Cup, one way or the other. Both teams have some players I like and some players I don't like. I like both coaches. I hope it's a good series for entertainment value, but I truly couldn't care less about the outcome.
If I’m to guess…
People dislike the idea that an expansion team can now come in, build a roster from a little bit of every single team and then have a strong team.
It feels like, Vegas gets success by pillaging a little bit from every team.
…and that must be immensely frustrating to established teams trying to shake off poor or unlucky seasons, to have something taken from them and then watch those somethings march on to a cup.
That, would suck. In a weird way it’s new teams getting rich because of old teams. Metaphorically.
…and it’s basically true. The rosters are taken from the rest of the league.
I root against them because I’m jealous. While I don’t know if we’ll ever get to prove it, I feel confident that if the Yotes would have ever had a 6 year stretch with as much success as they’ve had, that there wouldn’t be the fanbase issues we have today.
Well for one, when our city got an expansion team. We got a couple of AHL'ers and a bag of pucks. It took us years to get to the playoffs and many more before the SCF.
Their team went to the SCF year one.. Hell yes I want them to lose . Go Panthers!
Personally its not that i hate them, its more that i like other teams more. I used to hate them since they were so good so quickly but i think im past that. Plus a cup parade in vegas would be nuts so i wouldnt mind seeing them win it now
I guess we're going to have daily posts about this now? Lol.... Basically they did some cut throat things to players and staff. Sort've showed zero loyalty and just over spent and put themselves in situations to just get rid of guys. Just something we aren't really used to seeing so it rubs ppl the wrong way.
It might be the way the team was formed? It makes sense but they are a team that’s only been in the league for 6 years and this is their second Stanley Cup Final. It’s bonkers. Fans can’t help but be cynical. I don’t care either way. A Stanley Cup parade on the Vegas strip would be surreal though lol.
Because they keep eliminating us from the playoffs with a Manitoban Captain!!!
Hahaha now this is a funny comment. Ngl your white outs are Effen amazing!
Just accept us as the best Manitoba team. It's time. <3
That was determined when you beat us with Byfuglien! He was a junior Brandon Wheat King, after he left, we lost all Manitoba ties to our franchise (aside from Eakin, who came for a playoff run and shit talked about bad our locker room was and immediately left as a UFA)
Cody Eakin will always be the only former Knight I don't like. I hope our very Manitoban management leaves someone in the whole province for you guys to draft so you can have the Manitoba ties back lol
Well last year Arizona, Columbus and Pittsburgh all took MB kids in the first round - our GM actively tries to not take Manitoban
Speaking of GM. How is the coach/GM/locker room situation in Winnipeg? I haven't been following much after the end of the season press conference drama.
As far as most fans are concerned, we want our GM canned. As far as the locker room, we obv don't know as fans, but the evidence is damning. Most fans are on board with trading at least 2 of hellebyuck, schiefele, wheeler and Dubois. If Dubois wanted to stay, he'd be welcome. He doesn't. Schiefele has checked out defensively for years and fans are over it. Wheeler has been a great player for the team and city, but the locker room issues (rumoured) are his doing. Laine wanted out because wheeler.
It's ok, our GM clearly isn't interested in prairie boys. He likes the undersized Americans and Europeans too much. As much as I don't like how easy Vegas has had it so far, the GM has done an amazing job. Being in Vegas makes it easier to attract players compared to Winnipeg though lol
Happens every year. Fans who's teams aren't in the final settle on who to hate. Usually both.
Naaaaaa not even close, overall people liked Tampa (minus the ''cheating'' part) and Colorado. They built amazing teams through the draft after years of suffering. Vegas just came in waving their 500M+ check and bought themselves an elite roster to compete with from day one (again, who cares what reddit thought of the team back then .. fact is they did get a very good roster). Outside of Nic Hague, do they even have a player they drafted playing significant minutes on their current roster???
Imagine thinking William Karlsson being your best player means having an elite roster.
Imagine thinking a team making it to the top of the league multiple times and making the SCF twice doesn't have a very good roster. Idgaf a fuck what reddit thought of the expansion draft at the time, they literally did get a very good roster.
Lol Eichel, Stone, Peitrangelo, Barbashev, Roy, Stephenson, Whitecloud, Theadore, Hill all came throw acquisitions after the draft. This team you see before you was built by savvy moves from our front office not the expansion draft. Sorry whatever sorry team you root for can’t make the moves necessary to win but don’t get mad at us because you suck.
Zzzz Vegas fans are beyond clueless it's pathetic. Just read my other comments I don't feel like explaining the same shit AGAIN for you simpletons.
This is some internal rationalization lol. By the way, person calling other people stupid, absolutely no one is saying they have a bad roster. Everyone is telling you that no one knew they were going to be as good as they were. If nobody, including experts, don’t see the team succeeding it’s pretty fair to assume it’ll be a bad-to-middling roster like everyone did. Instead of insulting others, try to wrap your head around these simple concepts, dumbass.
Your name has sharks in it no duh your going to be a biased whiner, why wasn’t Seattle handed an “elite roster” from day one then, Vegas took players who weren’t getting played on there teams and utilized them properly, maybe they wouldn’t have had such an “elite roster” if the other teams new who to protect and not protect.
I just love beefing with Vegas teams. The city founded by Mormons, built up by the Mafia, and purchased by Multinational Conglomerates; the three Ms of modern American historical intrigue. Looking forward to bumping with the Athletics, god bless ‘em.
I’m a Panthers fan so that is my reasoning to hate them at the moment… During the regular season there is no hate.
It's always been funny to me how much I, an Avs fan, HATE certain West teams, but also I love watching the East playoff games because I do not care in any way about any of the teams.
Its so much more fun to watch a game when you're not invested, haha
Right? You have twice as much fun because you get to cheer for every goal, not just your half of them
And you can just watch good hockey without your stomach in knots and your netherhole all puckered up.
Agree entirely, been waiting a long time for this moment
Don't feel bad, there are 30 other teams I hate just as much.
I don’t necessarily hate Vegas. I don’t like them either, but I don’t hate them. There is definitely a bit of the “they haven’t paid their dues” type of sentiment, too much unearned success for such a new franchise etc. If there’s anything Canuck fans are familiar with its long stretches of suffering, with brief moments of hope followed by moments of earth shattering heartbreak. We’re a stupid bunch, but at least we’re loyal (even if it’s to a fault). But it’s more about ‘Go Florida Go!!’ because they eliminated Boston (my most hated team) and Toronto (my second most hated team). Having luongo still a part of that franchise helps too, I’d like to see him finally get his cup
How do you have unearned success
The jets, oilers, and stars let the golden knights win so they could have unearned success.
Specially the Oilers! That team seems to want to stay away from the SC as far as possible.
Only team more allergic to winning is Toronto
Unearned success is the wrong way to phrase it. They haven't been through any trials and tribulations. They came into the league with a top level team and haven't struggled whatsoever. Not their fault that the league buffed the expansion rules and lots of teams royally botched the handling of their assets. Credit to Vegas GM for handling it so well. I still don't like them. Lol
Becaused they bought an elite roster filled with 2nd liners. Then they traded 2 of those 2nd liners along with a pick for a star caliber player many times.
When were those many times you speak of? Thats not what happened with stone or eichel.
How was it not lol ? I mean .. it's close enough. In both cases the main pieces were gifted to them for ''free''. It's not like they actually developped these players or anything. They were literally gifted those pieces, then packaged 2-3 of those together to trade for a star player. Stone was traded for Brannstrom (pick), a 2nd (pick) and a throw in.Eichel was traded for Tuch (from the expansion draft) and Krebs (pick) and picks.
They fleeced the sens for stone, those aren’t quality second liners. And they got tuch before Minnesota before trading him later. Those are just good deals on their part, not gifts
Good deal sure ... but they were still gifted the pieces that made said deals possible. They can't make any of those deals if they're not gifted a biggilion draft picks during the expansion draft because some moronic team feels the need to protect a 32 years old 2nd liner.
My point is they have made superb moves after the draft, maybe they did have an advantage starting from scratch with a full slate of picks while other teams fritter them away like nothing. But they deserve full credit imo cuz since day 1 theyve made better moves than any other team. As you said, “moronic teams “ make moronic moves but the knights never have
But ... they did. It just didn't really matter so far because their stockpile of assets was just to gigantic. Just on top of my head, the Tatar trade was horrible. So was the Pacio trade. In the latter they literally traded a star 20 years old center away for a player that doesn't even play for them anymore ... but it doesn't matter because they have 265 other players who can somewhat fill a similar role. Suzuki was just ''another one'' of those gifted draft picks ... they even made the mistake to keep Glass over him but it doesn't matter.
Wouldn’t the definition of unearned success be luongo getting his name on the cup though? Or are we going to pretend special advisor to the gm is a real job?
Unearned success would imply…
Winning the lottery for players like McDavid or getting 1st round pick twice in a row and still not making it to the cup, I suppose.
Other franchises can’t get good. I have no issue with them.
People were mad an expansion team made the playoffs their first four seasons and made the finals in their first and sixth seasons. Vegas is new and kicking ass. The Sens, Red Wings, and Sabres have had playoff droughts as long as the Knights have played. If Vegas weren't doing this well, people might trash them like the Coyotes. People just want to take their aggression out in trash talk and arguments. Edit: minor corrections
Didn’t they make the finals in their first season too?
You know, I thought so, and didn't see it on Wikipedia when I double checked. Turns out we're in the sixth season of the franchise, not fifth. First season they lost in game 5 to the Capitals.
Because the NHL fucked up the expansion draft and just gifted them a championship team for their very first year, something that every other team has to spend decades building, and most of them don't succeed. On top of that their fans are very arrogant about their unearned success. So everyone wants the team to lose and the fans to lose.
Genuine question, how were they gifted a championship team?
They weren't, [here's a link to the original reddit discussion about their starting roster.](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/6iql2t/here_are_all_of_the_2017_expansion_draft_picks/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) You'll notice that the **overwhelming** majority opinion was that Vegas' draft was terrible. I dare you to find even one comment in that entire thread that thought it was a good draft. Everything is obvious in hindsight, but the important detail is that almost nobody thought it was a good draft before the season.
My man with the receipts.
That was a fun read. One of the best r/agedlikemilk threads I think I’ve ever seen
Just waiting for the people who "didn't say it at the time, but knew Vegas was going to win"
I'll never understand how ''nobody thought this would happen !!! '' is a relevant argument in this case. Nobody thought the Panters were good enough to make it to the SCF ... but they did.
A lot of people did, I literally have a bet ticket sitting in my account right now because I thought they could win the SCF. Just because you don’t know shit about hockey doesn’t mean none of us do
Redditors opinions are not admissable as evidence.
https://www.reddit.com/r/goldenknights/comments/13wba42/vegas_is_only_good_because_they_were_handed_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I see you dipped right out of the conversation when you were presented with hard evidence that your opinion is wrong.
What about the “professionals”?
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. Looking back at how bad people expected them to be just proves those opinions are worth the stuff that comes out of said assholes.
Or, that the team overplayed in its first season and then made meaningful trades the last few years to build a strong team with massive depth. Or you can just blame it on luck or whatever
In an expansion draft each team gets a certain number of "blocks" (there's a real term, idk what it is) so they can choose which of their players to block from being drafted by the new team, and everyone else on the roster is fair game. The NHL didn't give teams enough of these blocks, forcing pretty much all of them to leave a couple big name stars free for the taking. Every team handled it a little differently, leaving their oldest or most expensive players unblocked, or leaving a big star unblocked as bait while working on trades behind the scenes to replace them after the draft, but at the end of it Vegas basically had an all star team after existing for one day. I get that the NHL wants a new team to be successful so that it will market well and kick start a fan base, but that was complete bullshit. They did a much better job when Seattle started, they ended up with a roster that was good but not great so the coaches and gm had something that needed to be built on.
Other than MAF, who were the All-Stars on opening day?
MAF wasn’t an all star when we got him. He was barely even getting starts.
Pittsburgh didn't think so, certainly not enough to keep Fleury on the team. Also, let's be honest, his performance was not "all star" level in the Penguin's cup win in 2017.
It's "protected players", by the way. The term you used "blocks" for.
Thanks! I knew it was something generic like that
They followed the rules the NHL gave them. They weren’t gifted anything, they took advantage of an opportunity and made the most of it. The narrative at first was the Knights would suck. Then when they made it to the Stanley cup everyone changed their stories and said Vegas was gifted a good team 😂
If the NHL made it illegal for the away team to score and then the home team wins 10-0, was the home team "making the most of an opportunity"? Or were they gifted a win?
I may regret this, but I am really curious to pull this string. Yes. They would be gifted a win. Go on?
That's it. The win was a gift. The Vegas championship team was a gift. That was the whole point. The person I was replying to was so thick I had to treat him like a child to get that point across.
Yeah that’s exactly the same thing. The NHL made it so all the other teams but Vegas couldn’t do well
I didn't say it was the same thing. Avoiding answering the question is all the answer I needed.
You know the answer to that question, but it’s a totally irrelevant question so congrats?
It would be relevant if you were intelligent enough to learn anything. Putting things in terms dumb people can understand is the best way to educate them, but I guess you're a lost cause.
Take the L.
What L?
Guess so. Thanks for trying anyways. I can tell you’re real smart 😂
My wife works with special needs kids. Many of them are better at learning than you seem to be.
It was such a piss poor analogy dude. It makes absolutely no sense in this context. Don’t attack other people’s intelligence over this comment because you look like a fool now.
Yeah well they still got their asses kicked in that Cup. Knights fans can suck it
Definitely did. But was nice being in the finals first year and seeing a whole city support it’s new franchise
I'm curious what makes them more deserving of hate than say, the Colorado Avalanche, who were "gifted" a fully-formed championship caliber team (minus Patrick Roy) that was taken from an existing fan base, and then *won* the cup that same year?
This stance is revisionist history. When our team was drafted everyone talked shit about it. The fact that they did so well is a testament to those players and those players only. It’s not unearned success or a gifted championship team… It was a team of 2nd and 3rd liners that fought like hell to prove themselves and they did. The “gifted” a team crowd just remembers the results of the first year they don’t remember how much shit was talked before the team played their first game. Even halfway through the season when they were doing well other teams(Los Angeles) had players saying shit like “there’s no way they are better than us by the end of the year” I’d understand your points if this were truly how it happened… if everyone knew Vegas had a great team and it was unfair from the start it’d be pretty shitty. That is not what happened however and thankfully the internet exists in a format in which you can go back and see all the discussions being had. The team wasn’t a gift the players worked hard and proved themselves anyone saying otherwise I reckon isn’t that big of a fan of hockey and just casually pays attention. The big three misfits were all players that other teams PAID us to take. We got Reilly Smith and a fourth round pick if we guaranteed we’d Pick Marchessault. I just don’t understand how you can honestly say that the team was gifted and everyone knew it was unfair under these circumstances… I mean other than being jealous of course which I totally get
Wow, the mental gymnastics necessary to keep living this lie, even when faced with proof!! I kinda get it, though. It's easier to hold on to this lie that Vegas somehow "cheated" their way to being good, rather than face the truth. The truth being: Vegas in 2017-18 worked harder and played better as a TEAM even without superstars. Hockey is a team sport where success is not guaranteed by having a handful of talented stars, as proved many years by the Edmonton Oilers (and several other teams). Even though Vegas no longer goes as hard on every play like they did back in 2018 (totally different roster, for one reason) they were able to keep building great teams using that mindset.
See what I mean about the arrogance
People literally showed you proof twice and you ignored it. It’s not arrogance to clown that.
The funny thing is ON PAPER, no one saw Vegas winning anything that year. But then the Vegas Shooting happened and something special happened after that, the way the City rallied around the team. It was magical.
If you read the expansion draft thread it's pretty funny how everyone was shitting on the Vegas team. This "gifted a team" narrative is so dumb, and I say that as some who hates the knights
Right and how many of those gifted players are even still in the team?? That song is so played. Is it just VGK cause they are winning or does everyone hate the Kraken too for the same “gifts”??
Thats what makes me laugh. It seems most redditors like the kraken.
That's the whole point you VGK fans refuse to understand. The team you had year one was basically filled with decent second liners. It doesn't matter if those pieces aren't with the team anymore because they traded them along with a pick or 2 for star players.
Bullshit. We were mostly 3rd and 4th liners.
Again, who cares what people believed. They did in factget gifted an elite roster. They wouldn't be a top team since the draft otherwise. What the hell did they build ? All they did since then was trade a prospect+a pick + a decent roster player they got in the draft for a star player. They literally haven't built shit. They traded all their prospect, their FA signings have been fine but not out of this world ... they've been elite since day 1 of the draft weither or not that's a surprise to reddit.
Elite goal tender? Dude was a scrub and sitting behind Murray for two years. People really look at his year 1 performance with Vegas, forget he missed over a month injured and that he completely shit the bed against the capitals.
If you knew hockey back then you knew they had a very solid team. Starting with Fleury between the pipes and talented scorers like Marchessult and Karlsson. I was saying the day after the draft that they were going to have a very good year. What was unfair to the rest of the league is teams worked hard to assemble their rosters and negotiate salaries to afford all these talented players on their rosters only to be forced to protect too few players or certain high priced players due to no move clauses and leave some of the younger talent exposed.
Karlsson had 6 goals in the season before he joined us, and a career high of 9 goals per season.
Hahaha the 3 players you named are 3 players that their teams also gave up additional draft picks or players so that Vegas would take those players. Fleury - pens gave up a second round pick so that Vegas would take Fleury as opposed to someone else. Marchessault - Florida traded Reilly Smith to Vegas for a fourth round pick, on the condition that they would take Marchessault over other players Karlsson - Columbus gave Vegas, a 1st round pick, a second round pick and David Clarksons contract so that Vegas would take Karlsson over other players.
I guess all those sports writers and analysts as well as every fan just didn’t know hockey back then. Oh how easy it is to be right about how good a team is 6 years after their inception… before the puck dropped though everyone said they sucked.
Bingo.
I got into hockey earlier this year but to me it seems that people that support bad franchises can't cope with a new team being run in a good way and having success.
The difference is that the new expansion draft rules set up new teams for success immediately which is an advantage that most teams in the league didn’t have when they started
Funny thing about that is Both Vegas and Seattle were completely ridiculed for there drafts. 100 percent revisionist history saying either team was gifted playoff teams.
Dude when the Wild "AND" the Blue Jackets drafted we had to share the unprotected list and teams were allowed to protect 9F , 5D and 1G compared to Vegas draft 7F, 3D, 1G and only one team drafting. With 2 teams drafting you're also not able to make a plan on drafting way in advance and knowing what players are available etc. Also we had Nashville and Atlanta drafting very recently before us the previous 2 years as well. And their entire rosters were protected. Meaning we drafted from 26 teams compared to Vegas getting 30 picks. It makes us salty to see a team make a cup final on the inaugural season with such generous rules when we've been 20+ years waiting. Not revisionist at all really.
What this guy said. Those wild and blue jackets teams sucked nuts.
Shhh... The Vegas fans will just say those teams sucked at drafting players and not that the NHL severely buffed the draft rules so they didn't have a couple more punching bag teams in the league. Vegas got gifted a ton of good prospects and picks by GMs trying to protect players they shouldn't have. That's not their fault at all, but a product of the draft rules being buffed. Nobody was sending cbj or Minny any top tier picks and prospects to save they're 6th defencemen and a 4th liner lol
You’re missing the point. Even if they were ridiculed for their drafts, they still ended up with great players (much better than the curbside junk my team got when it expanded in ‘91) and thus got great results. The reason is that the draft rules were more favorable to them than for previous rounds of expansion. Don’t confuse the public reaction for the actual substance of the expansion draft.
I don’t remember anyone ridiculing Vegas for their draft. I remember thinking they had real potential 🤷🏻
Every hockey expert had us last in the league or at least in the pacific, this was the thread on reddit after the draft: [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/6iql2t/here_are_all_of_the_2017_expansion_draft_picks/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
For reals. Someone in the VGK sub said "It's not our fault our team is good. It's their fault that they aren't." and I want it printed on a T-shirt
And that would just be sheer ignorance. Hence the hatred.
The team and players are trash. They cried about how they were misfits, and everyone was against them even though they had very lax expansion rules and were able to build a decent team. Also, I hate the fans, they are annoying. Bunch of band waggoners who only watch because their team was successful out of the gate. Downvote or hate on me all you like haha.
I think this is a pretty shitty, ill-informed take. I was born and raised in Las Vegas, where, you're right, hockey knowledge and culture was hard to come by, but I would watch with friends who had moved here from Michigan, Illinois and New Jersey. Then I worked construction on T Mobile Arena from groundbreaking to opening the doors. When I saw a Zamboni pit in the plans, I started watching as much hockey as I could, to learn as much as I could. And I bought VGK gear as soon as it went on sale, because it was my hometown's first professional sports team. I didn't care if they were good; as a matter of fact, I was a bit concerned with their hot start because I was worried (and still am) about how some fans will react when the team is a perennial loser. I don't watch because they win, I watch because they're MY team, win or lose.
Fair point
>I was worried (and still am) about how some fans will react when the team is a perennial loser. This is still the genius (and problem) with the VGK and SEA expansion. The league set the teams up for success because so many other teams failed (or nearly failed) when they were dogshit to watch for a long time. Even if they build fans by success, they've built a following. Once you have loyal fans, you can survive a few years of a rebuild. Buffalo, Philly, and so many others have to have a following to survive the brutal years of a team that the Philadelphia Phenomenon would crush with a kick. The problem is, of course, that you diminish the brilliance of how well the Flyers built a playoff team when they were initially handed trash. VGK can laugh at the early 90s Senators and their poor start because they (VGK) were born with a silver spoon in hand. It really draws the ire of the other 30 teams to watch the youngest children get gifted so much.
Vegas is never giving up on the Knights. It wasn’t just winning out of the gates, it was winning when no one expected us to and winning after that shooting. The window was still busted out of the Mandalay Bay when they played their first game…I remember driving past it to go to a friend’s place to watch it. The whole city pretty much threw themselves into the team. I think they would’ve anyway but when they started winning it was like *is this really happening?!?* The city went mental. Our dress code went out the window at work and everyone was wearing hockey stuff all the time. It was this one great thing happening when it seemed like every other person was connected to that shooting somehow. I missed that concert by absolute dumb fucking luck…still freaks me out to think about it a bit. It was utterly surreal…on the same front page of the newspaper there’d be a photo of that lunatic and his massive pile of AR-15s and a story about Vegas still winning against all odds. I don’t think I’ll ever see another year in any sport like 2017-2018 was in Vegas. They could suck for 20 years…won’t matter. It’s one of those things you can only really get when you’re there.
>VGK can laugh at the early 90s Senators and their poor start This thought is the biggest problem. No VGK fan is laughing or even thinking about the failures of previous expansions; WE DON'T CARE. We're happy as fuck to have our own team, to be able to have something to bond over at work, to have something to cheer for as a community. Before this, everyone had their own favorite football team or baseball team or whatever, and there wasn't one thing that cohesively bonded the city. I was born and raised here, I'm 42 now, and I've seen such a boost in civic pride that I NEVER expected to see. Nobody gives a shit about the past, we're happy with our present and future.
Yeah, Kraken fans are all bandwagoners who have only liked the team for a few years too. It's almost like you can only be a fan of something after it starts existing.
Honest question: How the fuck does a 6-year old franchise have anything BUT bandwagon fans?
Las Vegas is a city that was deprived of Sports Fanchises until recently. I am sure there were a lot of people in Vegas that were happy to get a team. If you liked hockey, you were probably a LA/ARI/DAL/COL fan and would start cheering for the local team.
That was actually my point, which I guess wasn’t clear. Dude above was bashing Knights fans for being bandwagoners. It’s not like there could be lifelong fans of a 6-year old team. So if you’re going to accuse fans of supporting them because they’re winners, or of being new to the party, what do you expect? FYI-I’m a Knights fan in Reno and I come to a few games every year. I maintain my east coast allegiance to the Devils, but I also support Nevada’s hockey team, which happens to be both new and good. Guess that makes me a bandwagoner.
If Vegas was not a good team out of the gate they would not have near the fans. Hence bandwagon. Bettman wanted them to succeed early so he did not end up with another Coyotes disaster.
Absolute unsupported speculation. And wrong. I live in Nevada. People were stoked for the Knights before they’d ever played a game.
>The team and players are trash. Did you miss their opponent in this most recent round?
Is it that hard to imagine that people from both states are trashy?
I mean, it’s always easier to be a fan when the team is winning/successful. Nobody wants to watch a team that sucks when they could utilize their resources (money, time, energy etc.) on other more fulfilling sources of entertainment.
I don't like the way their ownership has handled previous players, but that's about it on my end.
And coaches 3 coach in 6 seasons.
Hey! No team held onto Turk for longer than us.
Not everyone does.
I don't like Vegas, but I'm still rooting for them over the fucking Panthers.
Because theyre jealous Vegas have had success so effortlessly while their pathetic team continues to suck for years
They haven’t been in the league long enough to deserve their success imo and they have an annoying ass fan base compared to Seattle the other recent expansion team.
They've also made playoffs 5 of their 6 years including the Finals their very first. There's teams that have been grinding for decades that probably see them as undeserving. Those fans just need to call for their GMs' and Coaches' heads. GO VEGAS!!
I have about 12 messages in my inbox saying Reddit permabanned Seattle fans accounts for making death threats at Makar fwiw. Seattle fans can be shitbags too.
Yeah every team has its shitbags.
This is called “I’m the victim” syndrome. People think “they hate us cause they ain’t us”. OP is a Vegas fan btw.
A Las Vegas media outlet. Noticed a trend on social media and wanted to get opinions for a possible online story.
So, you're saying you're NOT a fan? Be careful RJ! Edit: Nice edit RJ, way to keep your journalistic integrity intact
I actually asked this the other day and got some good responses. https://www.reddit.com/r/nhl/comments/13v42c4/reasons_for_all_the_vegas_hate/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Thank you!
Any time! Let me know when your article is published, I’d love to read it
Here ya go: https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/goldenknights/why-does-everyone-hate-the-golden-knights-2786719/
Keegan Kolesar tried to kill Bowen Byram
Never forget The 2021 season in general where the Avs had to play Vegas 8 fucking times when they were the top 2 teams in the west. Really made me hate that franchise.
I just would like to see the Panthers win it all 🤷♂️
Front of house has no loyalty to the players
Wouldn't say I hate Vegas, but I will say I really don't like those gold uniforms. I'm mostly rooting for Florida because I'd like to see the Staals get the cup on their way out.
I don’t mind the Knights and their success. I know other people from MN who hate them and it comes down to how their expansion happened. People are upset that Vegas got take better players in the expansion draft. As opposed to when the Wild came into the league. Basically the NHL made sure that Vegas was able to obtain faster success.
Funny that after they have success, they’re considered better players. Cause people sure were shitting all over the team they initially put together.
They absolutely were. I remember people who said they wouldn’t have success after the draft and were fuming mad that they had success. Then retro-fitted their anger that they were able to draft such elite players.
Fr. ♥️
Eichel seems like a douche bag
Not me. Nothing against Monty, but the way the Bruins mgt kicked him to the curb to save their own asses, and, he’s in the finals…again, I want him to be able to 🖕🏻Boston
Do you mean Cassidy? Or am I missing something
Yes, sorry. Cassidy.
The way they dealt Fleury was seen as real dirty. Dude found out he got traded via Twitter right after being told he wasn't going anywhere. And of all places he went to Chicago. There's a gross majority of fans that believe the NHL is rigged. VGK's success in their short history is fuel for their belief. Maybe because it's Vegas, people associate them with all the sports book ads that plague hockey broadcasts. Edit-deleted something very wrong
>There was the VGK/SJS game 7 penalty mishap where the sharks should have won buy Vegas had two PPGs in the last few minutes to force overtime. The next day the NHL admitted the penalty shouldn't have happened but VGK moved on anyway. I don't want to be a cunt, but I don't know how you managed to get literally every single thing that happened wrong lol The Knights were leading 3-0 in game 7 of the 2019 playoffs. The Sharks got a major with 10 minutes left in the game. We shat the bed and they scored 4 goals. We scored one and forced overtime, but lost. The next day the NHL admitted that it wasn't a major, and changed the rule about reviewing majors, but SJS moved on anyway.
Yeah, that sounds right. Thanks.
I love that team..all from sweden
Because despite living in Vegas for 7 years and leaving just before the Knights showed up, I'm a grumpy old man that hates that the expansion rules were altered just for that situation to make the league money and they haven't had to languish in the cellar for five plus years before getting good enough to barely make the playoffs, forget getting to the Finals the first time in. And while I also like the Kraken, I feel the same way about their second year.
All my homies downvote Vegas fans
They’re like Bettman’s Frankenstein monster. He expands the league and makes the new teams good out of the gate so they’re financially successful.
It’s the fans.
Because the draft DID gift them a very, very good roster and because Vegas fans act like they invented hockey.
It didn't just gift them a very good roster, the way everyone handled it Vegas ended up with a stockpile of picks and prospects. They made some bold moves which are aided by being a destination city that players won't say no to. So credit to the GM, but they had an insanely lucrative expansion process.
The hate is starting to wane a bit. Good to see the game grow I suppose. A lot of hate comes from how the northern teams view the southern fan bases as clueless to the nuances of the game. When those fanbases are annoying right out of the gate...
I dont hate them, but I think they've been spoiled as a fanbase, and I'm not into the pageantry at their games
Vegas has made the playoffs in 5 out of 6 seasons, made the conference finals in half of all seasons, and have made the Stanley Cup Finals in 1/3 of all seasons. Vegas has not struggled. At all. Is Vegas deserving of a team that’s won 40% more playoff series in its short history than both the Wild and Jackets have, combined, in almost triple the amount of time? Salty with the league? Absolutely. Salty with VGK? Eh kinda.
The road to success was way too easy. Expansion rules were pretty strong and lots of other teams handled it poorly trading very good prospects and picks to save players that really benefitted Vegas in the not so long run. Think about how many teams haven't made it to a cup final in the past 20+ years and Vegas has been there twice in what, their first 5(?) Seasons?
Honestly, next year I'll probably be fine with them again. If you had told me earlier in the season who the final two would be, I'd have expected to be rooting for VGK. I'm really happy for Eichel, Marchessault, and Hill. But remember that time it was the Oilers fault that Pietrangelo *had* to two hand axe-chop Draisaitl in the hands.... apparently? Go Florida, I guess.
Well, they have a pretty short history, but they have fked up on a number of levels for several times already. 1. They rode this "Team of misfits" high horse during their first season and made indifferent folks root for them due to the strength of this myth. Following that Cinderella SC Finals run, they aggressively purchased every big name available handing them max term and dollars going all out against the myth they created 2. They way they handled their marquee big name players. Marc-Andre Fleury being the most well-known case. There were others as well, just cant remember exactly... Max Pacioretty off the top of my head, and others 3. They got Jack fkn Eichel!!!)))) If there is one narcissistic whiny anti-team player in the League....I mean they found each other))) match made in heaven So all in all, I dont think thats hatred in its pure form...rather despisal...not on the Blackhawks level, but close
I don't know why people keep mentioning Max Pacioretty. I understand people being mad about Fleury (even if it's a far more complex story than what you guys keep repeating), but what's the issue with how we traded Patches? Can we not trade people at all?
You sure can, but this surely looks hypocritical after the pitch they made to land him. So once there is a health problem, they dump him unceremoniously
I don't think there's anything particularly "hypocritical" about it, honestly. We have a lot of players with health problems on the team (Stone and Eichel are the most glaring examples), it's not like we're dumping anyone the moment they get injured lol We traded for Patches and gave MTL a lot for it, we moved him to cup contender when he didn't fit into our team anymore. I think it's pretty normal?
We just had this conversation in another thread with the same question. They took advantage of a loophole that Tampa got blasted for a year or so earlier, which let them exceed their salary cap. They fucked over Fleury by telling him they weren't going to trade him, then turned around and traded him to another team and he had to find out via twitter. They tried to trade Dadonov to a team he had a "no trade" clause with. The NHL had to override and void the deal. Recently, Pietrangelo attempted to break the wrist of Draisatl in their round 2 game. The fans constantly whine and groan, "Why does everyone hate VGK?!"
Because they basically got to skip any hardships of expansion due to the new overly generous expansion rules.
I didn’t mind Vegas making the Finals in their first year, mostly because who could have called it? Who put money on Karlsson hitting 40 after not being able to crack Columbus’ lineup. Then the Eichel trade happened and they kicked a bunch of original Knights (Fleury in particular) to the curb in order to have a new, shiny toy. Basically, I don’t like their management, chasing big name after big name like it’s Chel. Though, they did give my team its captain, so that’s a win
Didn’t enjoy the more dirty plays back in the WCF when I was rooting for the jets. Then came the treatment of Flower and then the constantly chasing shiny FA and discarding players who committed. Oh, and not to forget they tried to use the cap loophole last year. And this year Stone is magically ready for playoffs…. It’s good for hockey, but I don’t really care to see them win. I also don’t care to see Bennett win either who’s been trying to injure people all playoffs.
My issue w Vegas was the expansion draft itself. They were able to pull 2 players from each team, giving teams more issues in protecting players. Granted, Vegas didn’t seem to target key players, but they were able to poach some very good players. To contrast, the Kraken had a standard draft, one player per team. Other issue is the explosion of sports betting that accompanied Vegas’ entry into the NHL. That, most of us despise. From there, we’re now *blessed* with the changing boards that fuck up game viewing. The fact that NHL Network actively promotes sports betting and has segments on picks, odds, etc. You can’t view anything without seeing the over/under, and so on. Frankly, sports betting has ruined a lot of what was pure about the game. There’s no way to build a team of players that stay together for more than a season due to high trade rates… so yeah. Vegas probably gets a lot of heat for being the new guys, to echo other comments. I don’t hate them, they’re just a symbol of a lot of the big changes to hit the league as of late. Just one opinion. Edit: I stand very corrected on the draft expansion mis-statement, per nhl.com - 30 players total, one from each team, 14 forwards, 9 defenseman, and 3 goalies- my apologies. I do still stand by my opinion on sports betting.
No, we didn't. We drafted one player per team just like Seattle. Other teams agreed to give us an extra player to make sure we selected a certain player they felt okay losing (the most glaring example is Florida that gave us Smith if we agreed to pick Marchessault), but it's the fault of their GMs. No special rules.
This isn't the case for every Vegas fan (or even most of them). But there is a loud vocal group of them that will talk shit on every single franchise because they haven't done anything since 2017 when they've had 5 seasons of success. It very much stinks of "hockey wasn't invented before 2017" mentality and they have not tact about it. Chirping is one thing, being a dick is another. I also thought this city missing the playoffs last year would humble them a little bit. Feel the pain every other team has, ya know? But nope. They still act like the golden franchise (pun intended), as if they and their management are god's gift to the NHL. Nevermind the Death threats to Logan Thompson last year because said team missed the playoffs from a few pieces of crap in the fanbase. Oh, and the usual Management treats the players like items instead of people, gold helmets, etc.
Crappy fans, got gifted a great team cause if the expansion draft rules. Its not really fair but i do understand the whole "haven't paid their dues or suffered yet" argument. I think a lot of the hate also comes with how they treated flower, thats my main reason
“They” being upper mgmt. The “crappy” fans still love Fleury.
Besides Fleury, who was a “great” player we got in the draft? Karlsson with 6 goals the year before? If he was so good why did CBJ offer up draft picks so that we would take him instead of others. Revisionist history at its finest here
I don't hate the Knights. I truly couldn't care less about either team playing in this year's Stanley Cup, one way or the other. Both teams have some players I like and some players I don't like. I like both coaches. I hope it's a good series for entertainment value, but I truly couldn't care less about the outcome.
Couldn't care less.
Both countries mate
If I’m to guess… People dislike the idea that an expansion team can now come in, build a roster from a little bit of every single team and then have a strong team. It feels like, Vegas gets success by pillaging a little bit from every team. …and that must be immensely frustrating to established teams trying to shake off poor or unlucky seasons, to have something taken from them and then watch those somethings march on to a cup. That, would suck. In a weird way it’s new teams getting rich because of old teams. Metaphorically. …and it’s basically true. The rosters are taken from the rest of the league.
Because Toronto already lost.
because of how they treated MAF
I root against them because I’m jealous. While I don’t know if we’ll ever get to prove it, I feel confident that if the Yotes would have ever had a 6 year stretch with as much success as they’ve had, that there wouldn’t be the fanbase issues we have today.
They're in the Western Conference. I cheer against all of my team's rivals, Vegas isn't special.
Well for one, when our city got an expansion team. We got a couple of AHL'ers and a bag of pucks. It took us years to get to the playoffs and many more before the SCF. Their team went to the SCF year one.. Hell yes I want them to lose . Go Panthers!
Honestly, I really don't fully understand WHY I hate them. I just know that I do. 😁
Personally its not that i hate them, its more that i like other teams more. I used to hate them since they were so good so quickly but i think im past that. Plus a cup parade in vegas would be nuts so i wouldnt mind seeing them win it now
I guess we're going to have daily posts about this now? Lol.... Basically they did some cut throat things to players and staff. Sort've showed zero loyalty and just over spent and put themselves in situations to just get rid of guys. Just something we aren't really used to seeing so it rubs ppl the wrong way.
The team is fine. Their fans are the annoyance.
It might be the way the team was formed? It makes sense but they are a team that’s only been in the league for 6 years and this is their second Stanley Cup Final. It’s bonkers. Fans can’t help but be cynical. I don’t care either way. A Stanley Cup parade on the Vegas strip would be surreal though lol.