Felix’s Corner Offseason Edition: Brief Stanley Cup Final Thoughts & Some Expansion Draft Things

Brief Stanley Cup Final Thoughts & Fun Expansion Draft Things!

So I thought about doing a full Stanley Cup Final edition of this editorial right after the postseason ended, but I did say I might not be doing another article this year on the 2016 postseason. I guess I kind of lied, but not really. In this one, I’ll be sharing my brief thoughts on the Stanley Cup Final and then going into the Expansion Draft for the Vegas Golden Knights that happens during the NHL Awards on Wednesday.

First, I’m just going to get this out of the way. Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins for not only winning the Cup for the second straight year in a row, but also the first team to win back-to-backs since the Detroit Red Wings in ’97 and ’98. Also special congrats to the Nashville Predators for not only making the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in franchise history, but also having one hell of a playoff crowd. I mean, you want to talk about a raucous atmosphere. Preds fans absolutely blew the roof off of Bridgestone Arena. Let’s step our game up, eh, Sharks fans?

I’ll admit. I didn’t watch too much of the Stanley Cup Final series. I had work and other obligatory things in life, but I tried to catch what I could. Give the Predators credit, though, for giving Pittsburgh a great series. It’s just unfortunate that Nashville lost on a somewhat questionable call, but I won’t get into that. There’s already been enough debate over the intent-to-blow rule.

So now that the postseason has come and gone, the interesting part of hockey that is the offseason is here — and we all know what that entails especially with the 2017-18 season coming up. That’s right! The Vegas Golden Knights joined the NHL as the 31st team and latest expansion team since a while back. Y’all probably wanted to forget about them, but unfortunately that’s not how sports works.

With the Golden Knights coming in, that means we’re going to have an expansion draft and LOTS and LOTS of trades (and we had a few coming into the trade freeze). If you need a refresher or are still unclear on the expansion draft rules, here’s a short little video below provided by the San Jose Sharks organization.

Full credits to Dan Rusanowsky and Randy Hahn for breaking the rules down in layman’s terms.

Vegas is also expected to unveil their new jerseys on Tuesday, so it will be interesting what that will look like as well as their first-ever NHL roster after the expansion draft.

Ian Reid, Hockey Jerk, and (possibly) Kevin Lacy will be covering a lot of expansion draft and NHL draft as well as trade news in upcoming Teal Tinted Glasses Reborn episodes, so be sure to look out for those! Until next season, this very well could be the last article I write for 2016-17. Or it might not. Who knows? Oh, and I might have to sign that contract extension with Teal Town USA as my current contract is likely expiring.

That said, keep supporting Teal Town USA and go Sharks!