Official NHL Season 2016-2017 Thread

[philou21]

Gallant is the head-coach of Vegas. I also agree that the talent is watered down in the league. I really don't agree with this expansion even though it's interesting to follow.

[CJ]

talent is watered down in the league

This is something that has bothered me for ages. I would rather see less teams than more. More teams = less talent/per team.

[Ukko]

New NHL jerseys unveiled yesterday, including the Vegas' jersey.





(Personal opinion)
Good stuff :
- Blackhawks collar improved to make the jersey even better. Collars look good on all jerseys imo, which wasn't the case with Reebok's jerseys.
- Minnesota is very nice as they made it, one of my favorites on this list.
- Colorado's looks better, but it was barely impossible not to.
- Vegas' jersey looks nice, I'm curious to see the goalies' choices for custom pads and glove/blocker.

Disappointments :
- Washington is better, but they really should switch to their red third.
- Senators', I think they'd have remade it entirely, but I guess some Classic jersey will be out in the next years.
- LA would look better without these grey lines too, imo.
- Vancouver still has the wordmark, it's awful and ruins a jersey that'd be great without it.


In general, I like how they got rid of the small lines in many jerseys (Nash, Calgary, Colorado, etc.), I like the general "cleanliness" of the jerseys. I wish they'd get a bit more wild on some designs that needed improvement. Minnesota's example is a good one in this case, I wish they'd do similar things to Sens', WSH, or CAR.
Central division jerseys look great altogether, nice colors and diversity.

[ClassicSwarley]

I really like how the Vegas jersey looks, I dig the grey. I'm also happy that they practically didn't change anything about the Flyers jersey which I considered to be great before this one

[MWE]

I like the Vegas top might have to get one of those.

[Primis]

I'll have to disagree with that Vegas look. Ugh. Gray, really? That comes off as "The owner was really hung up on somehow incorporating the Black Knights thing he originally wanted still, but since LA and Anaheim in their division already feature similar black looks (LA especially) he went with a dark gray". Kinda' lame. Not sure why black or gray has to be the primary color for the "GOLDEN Knights" anyways. They could have rocked red and gold with black trim and would have looked fantastic. The gray ones now look like an SPHL team or something. I guess I'll have to hope their owner isn't around long so they can abandon his personal fetish for the Black Knights idea and move on...

[Ukko]

Now that we think about it, I'd have swapped grey and gold personaly

[philou21]

I don't really like the shirt either, it's average at best.

[CJ]

(Personal opinion)
Good stuff :
- Blackhawks collar improved to make the jersey even better. Collars look good on all jerseys imo, which wasn't the case with Reebok's jerseys.
- Minnesota is very nice as they made it, one of my favorites on this list.
- Colorado's looks better, but it was barely impossible not to.
- Vegas' jersey looks nice, I'm curious to see the goalies' choices for custom pads and glove/blocker.

Disappointments :
- Washington is better, but they really should switch to their red third.
- Senators', I think they'd have remade it entirely, but I guess some Classic jersey will be out in the next years.
- LA would look better without these grey lines too, imo.
- Vancouver still has the wordmark, it's awful and ruins a jersey that'd be great without it.

Hahah, I would probably switch around your "good stuff" and "disappointments."

I would have gone with a golden Vegas shirt with black in it. Black helmet and pants. Would have made them unique. Or just black with some gold in it. But not an ugly grey, jesus.. and with those other colors. Those 3 don't mix that well.

[philou21]

Do you guys know if the players know if they're picked up before the ceremony? I hate how they're doing it. One award, couple of selections. They probably want to keep some kind of "mystery" but I would've prefered that they reveal the team at the same time. If the players do not know if they get picked up or not the wait must be horrible.

[ClassicSwarley]

I really regret staying up to watch this awful ceremony just to see who VGK picked..

[philou21]

Of course they picked Pickard.

[ClassicSwarley]

Wow, Islanders.. just wow.

[philou21]

What's going with NY?

Also, Thorburn from Winnipeg? Really? I was expecting Enstrom to go.

[CJ]

Reason why they picked Tornburn.

Vegas acquired Winnipeg's 1st-round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft (No. 13) and 3rd-round pick in 2019 for Columbus' 1st-round pick in 2017 (No. 24, previously acquired by Vegas).

But what are Florida doing? They lost Marchessault. But then they give Reilly Smith to Vegas for a 4th round pick also.

[Saapas]

So happy for Burns winning the Norris trophy

[CJ]

So happy for Burns winning the Norris trophy

I was sure Karlsson would win it again.

[philou21]

I was sure Karlsson would win it too but I'm very happy that Burns won it. He totally deserves it IMO.

Now that the draft is over, I seriously have lower expectations now for LV. Even though some people are saying that there will be more trades to come that will chsnge the team, I was expecting to see the line-up to be a bit stronger than that. They can't make 10 trades to aquire good enough players to get that good.

[Ukko]

I also was rooting for Karlsson, but Burns deserves it too. It's a tie to me

[stone169]

Karlsson had the offensive numbers and he had the much better defensive numbers. Many of the so called experts made their decisions during the first part of the season, because Burns was phenomenal. It was the ones who paid attention in the second half that probably voted for Karlsson. Burns disappeared and Karlsson showed exactly why he's the best defenseman in the world.

Not taking anything away from Burns. He's a great defenceman, but this is the 2nd straight year that Karlsson has been robbed of the Norris.

[redrobert81]

interesting that Las Vegas didn't claim any of the austrians

[CJ]

Karlsson had the offensive numbers and he had the much better defensive numbers. Many of the so called experts made their decisions during the first part of the season, because Burns was phenomenal. It was the ones who paid attention in the second half that probably voted for Karlsson. Burns disappeared and Karlsson show exactly why he's the best defenseman in the world.

Not taking anything away from Burns. He's a great defenceman, but this is the 2nd straight year that Karlsson has been robbed of the Norris.

I agree.

[Asher413]

I see Vegas more like the Florida Panthers when the dust settles- they played .500 hockey their first 4 seasons. Probably the biggest reason Florida was more successful than the others- Vanbiesbrouck. Vegas has Fleury who has at least 3 more darn good seasons in him (2 under contract). At some point, they currently have about 33 NHL players, and some of those guys have to turn into picks or 2-1 3-1 deals for players. They also set up well with the number of draft picks to help dig out of the expansion hole. Yes, scoring will be an issue, but this may have the most top 9/top 4 talent of any expansion team in the last several expansions.

On their uniform: Yeah, the obsession with trying to match the Army look is going too far, and the grey... well. But here's what's not pictured here: They will have WHITE gloves with that jersey. Oof.

[Primis]

Vegas let themselves get negotiated out of almost every player of actual value. They're going to be abysmal on the ice. They may not have a single 20-goal scorer.

They did right in getting guys like Nosek, Reinhart, Pulkkinen, because those are the younger guys you have ot take a chance on I guess. How did they not get Subbam out of BOS though? Pickard instead, really?

The kicker? As of right now CapFriendly has Vegas having the 2nd highest cap hit in the league at $74,125,833. I realize Clarkson's pointless $5.25m comes off for the season but.... really?

Vegas already seems horribly mismanaged.

[philou21]

Well maybe they also plan on being bad to draft well for the next years or so....and don't forget...the guy managing this team is the same that gave Forsberg for Erat!

Pickard is a good pick. He doesn't have great stats bevause the Avs are well...bad byt the kid is decent. Subban has no NHL experience and he doesn't seem to improve alot. He has good stats in the AHL but each time they tried him in the NHL he was horrible.

Also, there still alot of rumors that Bergevin is looking to trade Galchenyuk. After getting Drouin that would be a mistakr IMO.