At least Kuemper was Colorado’s starter. Hill is only playing because three other goalies got hurt. Vegas’ roster is stacked.
Most of my family are NBA fans, namely the Heat, so they had a watch party for everyone on the reservation to get together to watch last night's game and then decided at last minute today to have one for the Panthers game too. I told them that was probably not a good idea but nobody ever listens to me.
That’s such a silly narrative that is 100% revisionist history lol everyone and their mother thought Vegas was going to be awful until they weren’t. Other teams were literally paying them to take these supposed “high caliber” players
I knew full well from the start that Vegas would be competitive. Never understood why people thought they would suck. True, they didn’t get the superstars in the draft, but their team was basically made of good/great players that teams couldn’t save (although some teams like the Panthers made some really bad moves). So they didn’t have the ULTRA great players, but they didn’t get the bad players either. Just a well rounded team of good/great players.
they definitely over performed that year but just because teams were paying them to take players doesn’t mean they were smart decisions. IIRC Florida gave them Marchessault and Smith so they wouldn’t take Alex Petrovic
Oh believe me, I wasn’t suggesting they were good moves lol. I’m just saying Vegas were not expected to be good that inaugural season and these supposed great players that the NHL handed them is not a real story whatsoever Karlsson led the team in scoring and went from 6 goals to 43. If anyone can honestly look at the Vegas roster that year theough the lense of what the perception of almost all of those players was in 2017-18 and tell me they thought they would be competitive, they’re either lying or some sort of hockey prophet lol Power Rankings: Penguins start on top NHL preseason power rankings: Penguins start where they finished | Sporting News https://theathletic.com/117965/2017...at-the-projected-2017-18-nhl-standings/?amp=1 People thinking that team was going to be good and were given a good team just isn’t a real story lol
after the Cory Schneider experience, I have huge pause giving up major assets for a 30 year goalie and signing him to a long extension I wish Helle was signed for like 3 years and then I would gladly give up Bratt for him
but then again, Adin Hill just won the Cup and Akira Schmid was awesome in the playoffs and I would very much like to see him get a shot at being the #1
Which is why I will go nuts if Don gets too precious about keeping the Swayman/Ullmark tandem together