Stephen Valiquette

How opposing GMs gifted Vegas the winningest team in hockey at the expansion draft: Bad Trades • Anaheim traded Vegas Shea Theodore so they take on Clayton Stoner's $3.25m x 1y contract. • Minnesota traded Vegas Alex Tuch so they would pick up Erik Haula instead of Matt Dumba or Eric Staal. • Pittsburgh traded Vegas a 2nd round pick (Drew Commesso) so they would take on Marc-Andre Fleury's $5.75m x 3y contract. • NY Islanders traded Vegas the 15th overall pick (Erik Brannstrom) and a 2nd round pick (Egor Sokolov) so they would take on Mikhail Grabovski's $5m x 1y contract. • Tampa Bay traded Vegas Nikita Gusev, a 2nd round pick (Alex Texier) and a 4th round pick (Paul Cotter) so would take on Jason Garrison's $4.6m x 1y contract • Winnipeg traded the 13th overall pick (Nick Suzuki) for the 24th overall pick so Vegas wouldn't select Tobias Enstrom. Bad Protections • Boston protected Kevan Miller over Colin Miller. • Los Angeles protected Derek Forbort over Brayden McNabb. • St. Louis protected Sobotka, Berglund, Reaves over David Perron and Jordan Binnington. Bad Everything • Florida traded them Reilly Smith for a 4th round pick, left Jonathan Marchessault exposed, while protecting Alex Petrovic & Mark Pysyk. • Columbus traded them a 1st & 2nd round pick so they would take on David Clarkson's $5.25m x 3y contract. Then they exposed 43-goal scorer William Karlsson. In total, they finessed: • Shea Theodore • Jonathan Marchessault • William Karlsson • Reilly Smith • David Perron • Brayden McNabb • Marc-Andre Fleury — • Alex Tuch (huge part of Jack Eichel package) • Nick Suzuki (huge part of Max Pacioretty package) • Drew Commesso (huge part of Robin Lehner package) • Colin Miller (huge part of Alec Martinez package) — • Erik Brannstrom & Egor Sokolov (became Mark Stone) • Erik Haula (became Nicolas Roy -> Mitch Marner) • Alex Texier (became Keegan Kolesar) • Nikita Gusev (became Daniil Chayka, Lukas Cormier, and Jakub Demek) • Paul Cotter (became Alex Holtz, Akira Schmid, and Mason Moe) The league's got no one to blame but themselves.

Kreider specifically studied the expected scoring percentage off of passes across the slot line. Single slot line pass to quick release: 33% chance Double slot line pass to quick release: 66% chance Double slot line pass to release = highest goal percentage in hockey.