Power Rankings: The GM’s that made Vegas

Who’s Really Responsible for Vegas

The Vegas Golden Knights are officially on their way to the Stanley Cup Final after their most recent conquest, the Winnipeg Jets, dropped 4 straight games after winning game one in the Western Conference Finals.

The Revisions to the history book that is the Vegas Golden Knights have been many at this point. The NHL rigged the rules to make Vegas awesome is a common complaint in NHL circles. Now I love a good Gary Bettman bashing as much as the next hockey fan, but the NHL is hardly to blame here. Yes, the expansion rules were more favorable than years past, but this is a good thing. Placing terrible teams in non-hockey markets and expecting them to draw fans is not a recipe for early success. Just ask Nashville who faced relocation before they built the contender they have now. Ask the Atlanta Thrashers… wait they no longer exist. You could also ask the teams in Florida who have had multiple ownership changes.

So who is to blame for all this?  Well…

Reminder: The #VGK were given a 2nd-round pick to take Marc-Andre Fleury, Jonathan Marchessault to take Reilly Smith, Alex Tuch to take Erik Haula, Shea Theodore to take Clayton Stoner and a 1st and 2nd to take William Karlsson and David Clarkson’s contract.

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) May 21, 2018

If only there was a way we could rank the GM’s from those that had the least impact on the Golden Knights to the most.

Has someone made a power ranking of GMs and how badly they enabled/were fleeced by Vegas?

— Chris (@chrisjws) May 20, 2018

Brilliant idea, Chris!

To do this, we are going to break teams up into three groups. First, those that didn’t really lose anything significant to contribute to the Golden Knights success. The second group will be teams that had to part with a decent piece, but didn’t throw their wallet away. The last group is the GM’s that should be downright embarrassed for how they mishandled the expansion draft and their own assets.

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