Miracle on Manchester
June 5, 2018 9:20 AM Subscribe
As the expansion Vegas Golden Knights face what might be the impending end of their miracle season, let’s look at another great impossible occurrence in the history of NHL hockey: 1982’s Miracle on Manchester, the greatest comeback in league history, when the Los Angeles Kings overcame a 5-0 deficit against Wayne Gretzky's Edmonton Oilers and won in overtime. Read an oral history. Read an interview with game-winning goal scorer Daryl Evans. Watch a short documentary. Watch the whole game.
I dunno whats so miraculous about the Knights, you get 24 Canadians and a handful of Europeans together and you're going to get a competitive hockey team. I'm sure the prospect of living in Vegas for a few years seems like a lot of fun compared to living in Minnesota or Boston.
posted by GuyZero at 10:29 AM on June 5, 2018
posted by GuyZero at 10:29 AM on June 5, 2018
It wasn't a "dream season" . A team that is allowed to draft most of the best players from every team in the league SHOULD win everything.
posted by Docrailgun at 11:36 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Docrailgun at 11:36 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Vegas didn't draft the best players exactly. They drafted 2nd and 3rd line players, the players who everyone said "this guy has potential" or "this guy might pan out in a couple years" or even "we say this guy is good, with reservations, and we got all we are going to get" (Fleury) In most cases they are made of the players teams were willing to give to McPhee with draft pick sweetening in order to protect better things.
Vegas is thus a team with no 4th line and a lot of 2nd lines. They don't really have a 1st line per se, though.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 11:54 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Vegas is thus a team with no 4th line and a lot of 2nd lines. They don't really have a 1st line per se, though.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 11:54 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
I find it more intriguing that the final is in some sense The McPhee Bowl.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 11:55 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Typhoon Jim at 11:55 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Here's a good article about how they were built. You'll see that in many cases, other GMs fucked up bigly -- Florida giving them Smith so they'd take Marchessault in the draft, Columbus giving them a first-round pick to convince them to take Karlsson. They might have taken some of the best players from various teams, but it's those teams' fault for not recognizing that fact.
posted by goatdog at 12:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by goatdog at 12:09 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'm sort of fascinated by the idea that the Golden Knights got an unfair advantage in the expansion draft. You can see who they took. Of those 30 guys, 11 of them were traded for draft picks immediately, spent the season in the minors, or were injured for the entire season. None of them delivered any meaningful value to the 2018 team or were traded for anyone else who did. 5 more played partial seasons at the bottom of the roster or got traded for draft picks partway through the season, and all of them were basically meaningless to the team this year. 5 more did play most or all of the season with the Knights, but were more or less guys you can find anytime. This would be guys like Eakin, Nosek, and Bellemare who I think you could safely find plenty of at the bottom of any team's roster and can hardly be said to represent any kind of advantage.
There's also McNabb, Haula, Perron, and Neal, who all play important 2nd tier roles on this team. They're all good players, but I still feel like any are pretty much the guys you'd expect to find at the top of a generic expansion draft, which is to say they'd been around the league for a few years and hadn't quite made the next step yet, or in Neal's case, had been around for a long time and wasn't the player he'd been a few years ago. Again, I don't think there's anyone there who would be considered way too good to be found in a fair expansion draft or that represent some kind of massive upgrade unavailable to other teams.
That leaves 5 players who have played huge roles on the team and whose play subsequent to the draft sure seems like they should not have been available: Engelland, Karlsson, Fleury, Schmidt, and Marchessault. The problem here is that both Karlsson and Marchessault were the subject of pre-draft deals where the team explicitly asked for them to be drafted. The Flames had zero interest in keeping Engelland and were letting him go as a free agent no matter what. Fleury is sort of an odd case in that he's got an impressive track record, but already taken a back seat to Matt Murray and was on his way out no matter what. Schmidt is certainly a player the Capitals would have liked to keep, but he'd been playing on their 3rd pairing for a couple years with no sign of moving up the roster as quickly and dramatically as he did.
My point here is mostly that to the extent that the Knights were able to get a bunch of very good players immediately, it's almost entirely the fault of the teams that were basically begging for the Knights to take those guys. The unfair advantage the Knights had is that half the league lost their damn minds and just assumed they could shovel players they had no use for onto their roster, only to find that their idea of a low-value player turned out to be incredibly wrong.
posted by Copronymus at 1:00 PM on June 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
There's also McNabb, Haula, Perron, and Neal, who all play important 2nd tier roles on this team. They're all good players, but I still feel like any are pretty much the guys you'd expect to find at the top of a generic expansion draft, which is to say they'd been around the league for a few years and hadn't quite made the next step yet, or in Neal's case, had been around for a long time and wasn't the player he'd been a few years ago. Again, I don't think there's anyone there who would be considered way too good to be found in a fair expansion draft or that represent some kind of massive upgrade unavailable to other teams.
That leaves 5 players who have played huge roles on the team and whose play subsequent to the draft sure seems like they should not have been available: Engelland, Karlsson, Fleury, Schmidt, and Marchessault. The problem here is that both Karlsson and Marchessault were the subject of pre-draft deals where the team explicitly asked for them to be drafted. The Flames had zero interest in keeping Engelland and were letting him go as a free agent no matter what. Fleury is sort of an odd case in that he's got an impressive track record, but already taken a back seat to Matt Murray and was on his way out no matter what. Schmidt is certainly a player the Capitals would have liked to keep, but he'd been playing on their 3rd pairing for a couple years with no sign of moving up the roster as quickly and dramatically as he did.
My point here is mostly that to the extent that the Knights were able to get a bunch of very good players immediately, it's almost entirely the fault of the teams that were basically begging for the Knights to take those guys. The unfair advantage the Knights had is that half the league lost their damn minds and just assumed they could shovel players they had no use for onto their roster, only to find that their idea of a low-value player turned out to be incredibly wrong.
posted by Copronymus at 1:00 PM on June 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
I am from DC so this is my obligatory #ALLCAPS comment in this thread about hockey.
Carry on.
posted by numaner at 5:16 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
Carry on.
posted by numaner at 5:16 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
Heads up: if you do or do not care about hockey, and/or you are or are not a fan of the Golden Knights, you must know about Bark-Andre Furry. I recently discovered him and he immediately won my heart as one of my favorite famous puppers. Fun Twitter and Instagram to browse through
posted by Carouselle at 5:29 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Carouselle at 5:29 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
"A team that is allowed to draft most of the best players from every team in the league SHOULD win everything."
Yes, but that team is NOT the Vegas Golden Knights.
There is no team that lost its best player to Vegas, or its second-best player, or even its third-best or fourth-best player. The draft rules allowed teams to protect nine players per team. Not all teams protected their nine best players, but neither did any team leave an All-Star exposed. The aforementioned Karlsson and Marchessault deals were essentially a way of protecting a tenth player because their teams preferred to lose them instead of other players. In the immediate aftermath of the draft, few teams were upset about who they'd lost. Indeed, nobody thought the Knights even drafted particularly well. Fleury (special case) and Neal were really the only big name players, and both are past their prime. They were picked by literally everyone to finish last in the league.
"You get 24 Canadians and a handful of Europeans together and you're going to get a competitive hockey team."
This is literally every team in the NHL. As a Buffalo Sabres fan, I can assure you not all of them are competitive.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:52 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
Yes, but that team is NOT the Vegas Golden Knights.
There is no team that lost its best player to Vegas, or its second-best player, or even its third-best or fourth-best player. The draft rules allowed teams to protect nine players per team. Not all teams protected their nine best players, but neither did any team leave an All-Star exposed. The aforementioned Karlsson and Marchessault deals were essentially a way of protecting a tenth player because their teams preferred to lose them instead of other players. In the immediate aftermath of the draft, few teams were upset about who they'd lost. Indeed, nobody thought the Knights even drafted particularly well. Fleury (special case) and Neal were really the only big name players, and both are past their prime. They were picked by literally everyone to finish last in the league.
"You get 24 Canadians and a handful of Europeans together and you're going to get a competitive hockey team."
This is literally every team in the NHL. As a Buffalo Sabres fan, I can assure you not all of them are competitive.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:52 PM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
I realized something about Vegas about halfway through the season. It was in December when they played the Kings & the Capitals within a few days of each other. I caught a little post-game locker room interview w/ Nate Schmidt after Vegas beat the Capitals, Schmidt's old team, and then w/ Brayden McNabb, who the Kings let go in the expansion draft, and Vegas had come out on top in that game, too. Both of them, on their respective beat-my-old-team night, said about the same thing, which was something to the effect of "me and the guys really like beating our old teams". What I realized is nearly every night those guys could look around the locker room and say "Who we playing tonight? Oh, those guys? Who'd they give up? Nate? OK, we're winning it for Nate tonight!" So, first there's that, then another thing going for Vegas, pointed out by a hockey writer on The Athletic, IIRC, is this team has no long-standing locker-room grudges for overpaid players or that guy who got a bigger contract than me, or anything like that. So, fresh start, no grudges, and a new chip to put on your shoulder every night, and then some seriously divine intervention with their goaltending both early in the season when they got down to their fifth string goalie who came from the junior league, and then in the first few rounds of these playoffs, in which Marc Andre Fleury posted the highest save % of any goalie in the history of the NHL... through the first 3 rounds. It's been a helluva ride, but the Caps are going to raise the Cup in Vegas on Thursday. 5-2 Caps, I'll guess.
posted by Lukenlogs at 10:26 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Lukenlogs at 10:26 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
That leaves 5 players who have played huge roles on the team and whose play subsequent to the draft sure seems like they should not have been available: Engelland, Karlsson, Fleury, Schmidt, and Marchessault.
I've been mildly obsessed with this too, and a recent Down Goes Brown column had the "debate"section looking back at how the Golden Knights were viewed at the time, which was not very highly. (Search for "literally" to go to the links, including a number of people suggesting the Golden Knights are tanking.)
Of the best players - I'd make a slightly different list than you. Marchessault and Reilly Smith were the one pair that people couldn't understand at the time, a genuine gift from Florida. Fleury, Schmidt, Neal - good players, but their teams either just won the President's trophy or played for the Cup, no shit there's some depth there and the 10th best player is still decent.
Engelland has had leadership value, partly as a journeyman veteran, but mostly as an actual local (by Vegas standards), who married a Vegas native he met playing minor league there, and who lived there for 15 years, raised his kids there and was able to actually legitimately connect with the city as a resident, particularly in the wake of the terror attack, when the team helped bring the city together. If he'd fallen in love with a waitress in Lowell or Moose Jaw or Hershey or Scranton instead, 95% of his authenticity and authority are gone.
The big shock is Karlsson - nobody thought of him at the time; he was coming off of his second NHL season having scored 6 goals (he had 9 in his first). The Hockey News' analytics guy had him as the 10th best forward on the team, a replacement level guy. A lot of the news stories at the time don't even mention him unless they're mentioning everybody. You think you could have made money betting on the Golden Knights to play for the Cup? What would be the odds on "William Karlsson, 355th highest goal scorer in 16-17 season, scores more than Crosby or Malkin, Stamkos or Kucherov, McDavid or Matthews"?
Both of them, on their respective beat-my-old-team night, said about the same thing, which was something to the effect of "me and the guys really like beating our old teams".
Dave Lozo had the best suggestion, which is if they win the Cup, they should hold the parade wearing the jerseys of their former teams.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 10:53 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
I've been mildly obsessed with this too, and a recent Down Goes Brown column had the "debate"section looking back at how the Golden Knights were viewed at the time, which was not very highly. (Search for "literally" to go to the links, including a number of people suggesting the Golden Knights are tanking.)
Of the best players - I'd make a slightly different list than you. Marchessault and Reilly Smith were the one pair that people couldn't understand at the time, a genuine gift from Florida. Fleury, Schmidt, Neal - good players, but their teams either just won the President's trophy or played for the Cup, no shit there's some depth there and the 10th best player is still decent.
Engelland has had leadership value, partly as a journeyman veteran, but mostly as an actual local (by Vegas standards), who married a Vegas native he met playing minor league there, and who lived there for 15 years, raised his kids there and was able to actually legitimately connect with the city as a resident, particularly in the wake of the terror attack, when the team helped bring the city together. If he'd fallen in love with a waitress in Lowell or Moose Jaw or Hershey or Scranton instead, 95% of his authenticity and authority are gone.
The big shock is Karlsson - nobody thought of him at the time; he was coming off of his second NHL season having scored 6 goals (he had 9 in his first). The Hockey News' analytics guy had him as the 10th best forward on the team, a replacement level guy. A lot of the news stories at the time don't even mention him unless they're mentioning everybody. You think you could have made money betting on the Golden Knights to play for the Cup? What would be the odds on "William Karlsson, 355th highest goal scorer in 16-17 season, scores more than Crosby or Malkin, Stamkos or Kucherov, McDavid or Matthews"?
Both of them, on their respective beat-my-old-team night, said about the same thing, which was something to the effect of "me and the guys really like beating our old teams".
Dave Lozo had the best suggestion, which is if they win the Cup, they should hold the parade wearing the jerseys of their former teams.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 10:53 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
As someone who has watched the Caps go through ages of darkness, to me the power of really having no fate at all apart from generic low expectations can't be understated. It's one thing to be an expansion team that no one expects anything from and quite another to be the team that everyone has had to dissect the failures of for many years.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 6:42 AM on June 6, 2018
posted by Typhoon Jim at 6:42 AM on June 6, 2018
Of the best players - I'd make a slightly different list than you.
Honestly, I was trying to go by usage as much as talent, because otherwise I'm sure I would have let my biases creep in there. Even just in that little exercise, I was surprised by how much Engelland and Schmidt are playing. It's kind of a funny way to evaluate most expansion teams, because almost all of them are terrible and someone has to play top-line minutes even for terrible teams, but I'm less worried about it with a team that was undeniably successful. I'm a little skeptical that Engelland in particular is actually going to be good ever again, but I can't really argue with top-pairing minutes on the team that won its division (although, looking again, he really was more like the 4th D in even strength, so I might move him down a tier on a re-do).
posted by Copronymus at 11:19 AM on June 6, 2018
Honestly, I was trying to go by usage as much as talent, because otherwise I'm sure I would have let my biases creep in there. Even just in that little exercise, I was surprised by how much Engelland and Schmidt are playing. It's kind of a funny way to evaluate most expansion teams, because almost all of them are terrible and someone has to play top-line minutes even for terrible teams, but I'm less worried about it with a team that was undeniably successful. I'm a little skeptical that Engelland in particular is actually going to be good ever again, but I can't really argue with top-pairing minutes on the team that won its division (although, looking again, he really was more like the 4th D in even strength, so I might move him down a tier on a re-do).
posted by Copronymus at 11:19 AM on June 6, 2018
🏒🏆😁
so I have this weird superstition that developed from my days of rooting for the Chicago Bulls during the Jordan era that if I actively watch a sports game, the team I want to win usually loses, the exceptions have been if I turned in with like a few minutes left and that team is already winning by a good margin, then I'd actually get to watch them win. It's kind of frustrating to keep seeing your team lose. I started noticing that they win when I don't watch.
Tonight, I decided to watch the Stanley Cup game, knowing the Caps could win it all. I had dinner at a restaurant that had a bar, and after we're done with dinner my friends all left and I decide to hang out at the bar to watch the game already in progress. It was 3 minutes left in 2nd period, and the score was 2-2. Then the Golden Knights got the power play and scored with 30 seconds left in period. I could feel the superstition coming back because I was rooting for the Caps. So I left the bar and headed home. I'd been texting with friends that are watching elsewhere and I told them about my superstition and that I probably shouldn't watch. As I'm on the metro home, my friend texted me "Lol did you stop? Cuz we just scored". So I came home and just sat there waiting for the good news. And then it came!
I'm now convinced I have some god-like power over sports, even though this was the most I ever cared about a DC team and I usually don't currently care about any sports.
posted by numaner at 9:04 PM on June 7, 2018
so I have this weird superstition that developed from my days of rooting for the Chicago Bulls during the Jordan era that if I actively watch a sports game, the team I want to win usually loses, the exceptions have been if I turned in with like a few minutes left and that team is already winning by a good margin, then I'd actually get to watch them win. It's kind of frustrating to keep seeing your team lose. I started noticing that they win when I don't watch.
Tonight, I decided to watch the Stanley Cup game, knowing the Caps could win it all. I had dinner at a restaurant that had a bar, and after we're done with dinner my friends all left and I decide to hang out at the bar to watch the game already in progress. It was 3 minutes left in 2nd period, and the score was 2-2. Then the Golden Knights got the power play and scored with 30 seconds left in period. I could feel the superstition coming back because I was rooting for the Caps. So I left the bar and headed home. I'd been texting with friends that are watching elsewhere and I told them about my superstition and that I probably shouldn't watch. As I'm on the metro home, my friend texted me "Lol did you stop? Cuz we just scored". So I came home and just sat there waiting for the good news. And then it came!
I'm now convinced I have some god-like power over sports, even though this was the most I ever cared about a DC team and I usually don't currently care about any sports.
posted by numaner at 9:04 PM on June 7, 2018
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posted by Celsius1414 at 9:50 AM on June 5, 2018