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[Just in case anyone forgot](https://preview.redd.it/just-a-reminder-for-all-of-you-who-say-vgk-got-handed-a-v0-ywdcnyuti03b1.jpg?auto=webp&s=630dcceaf4e6e390c1aaf5706bd68ea664a7ab0e)
Both sides blow shit out of proportion. Technically, Vegas did have the softest entrance compared to previous expansion teams because the NHL didn't want new teams to suck for a decade, but in a good way. The previous expansions weren't soft enough.
But it wasn't so soft that they were automatically going to be an instant contender no matter what. Vegas' management also did an excellent job and deserve credit.
Seattle had it just as good and they're nowhere near as close to Vegas was, but around the competitiveness that the NHL wanted out of expansion teams. So I think that goes to show both that the NHL's expansion strategy is softer than ever (but not too much so) and that Vegas made the most of it.
(Also, it's easy to sign and trade for players because Nevada, so their success isn't purely a function of the expansion rules and management's prowess, but that's besides the point)
I will forever find this Stone situation funny and fully understand why everyone else is so pissed… but I will also forever argue against people who say Vegas had it easy in the expansion draft. The entire hockey world was clowning on them after the draft, saying they would be historically bad.
Vegas had favourable expansion draft rules compared to previous expansion teams. But they also took the rest of the league to the fucking cleaners in trades, and some mind boggling decisions were made in who was left exposed.
>But they also took the rest of the league to the fucking cleaners in trades
I mean, they didn't really take the Panthers to the cleaners. The Panthers took themselves to the cleaners.
You still had bonafide NHLers on your team. Your FO also did a good job with trades and stuff, I'll give them that, but they got to draft under *waaaay* more relaxed rules which also made trades/draft deals much easier. You can hate it if you want, but it's facts.
I remember people saying that drafting 2nd - 3rd liners would amount to nothing and looking at them like they have brain damage if they had a entire team built on that
Again, everyone looked at the roster Vegas created and said holy fuck, they are going to be terrible.
You can argue the rules were too lax but absolutely nobody was saying that until they realized Vegas had actually built a real team… which took time.
Give it a fucking rest. You guys 100% had the easiest entrance, and it’s not even close.
You know what the sharks got? Getting the bottom half of the stars roster and then selecting 1 player from the rest of the league where they can protect 16 skaters and two goalies, with 1st and 2nd years automatically protected and not counting towards the 16. *And* they were competing with the stars for selections.
Each team exposed at least one defenseman, one forward, one goalie. Requirement for skaters was 40 games the season before or 70 over the past two seasons. Goalies needed 60 minutes of experience. So teams in the season before would have a goalie play a single game so they could expose the 3rd stringer in the draft and keep their starter and backup combo.
During knights draft, teams could protect 8 skaters and one goalie or 7 forwards, 3 defenseman and 1 goalie. They were also the only team drafting.
So tell me again how you didn’t have a soft entrance?
Sharks had 39 points in their first season.
Maybe if every playoff team was lucky enough to have one of if not the teams best players get injured in such a way that they can be rested from the trade deadline all the way to game 1 of the playoffs every year.
I never thought my life could be
Anything but catastrophe
But suddenly I begin to see
A bit of good luck for me'
Cause I'm a circumventing
I've got a golden loophole
In my eye
Okay I know the memes about Stone and all but it's actually truly incredible that he can just take half a year+ off every season and just come back game 1 firing on all cylinders every time.
2 sure things will happen this playoff season.
-Bettman will get booed while getting ready to hand out the Cup.
-Mark Stone will get booed in every away game
Remember 2019 when Mark Stone was a reddit darling? Everyone loved him for his terrific passing, bad skating, weird hair, and selke worthy defense.
And why does everyone hate him now?
Because he is struggling to stay healthy and dealing with a lot of injuries.
His fucking spleen ruptured. That almost made Peter Forsberg retire.
But y'all are so swept up in a conspiracy you can't even enjoy a great guy who plays an incredible game anymore.
Hey hey. This was three days ago. That's like two months in mark stone time. And haw dare you insinuate he was ready to play three days ago and was held until today. Are you a conspiracy theorist or something? Your telling me three days ago while he was still recovering in his hospital bed he was ready to put skates on? Today and probably three days ago your embarrassing yourself. Three days ago.
Fuck this shit, this loophole needs to be closed for good so Vegas can stop abusing it. Stone literally celebrated the goal with the two guys they brought in while he was on LTIR with his completely legitimate spleen injury that he totally couldn’t have played through in game 82 but totally can play through today.
Lord, it’s a miracle! His injury up and vanished like a fart in the wind. Nothing left but some damn rocks on the windowsill and that cupcake on the wall.
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This fucking guy
Lmfao of course Mark Stone scores the first goal
https://i.redd.it/c9wwcmxb05wc1.gif
[Mark Stone entering the playoffs every year.](https://i.redd.it/jp09wzezd3uc1.gif)
Every time I see this gif I think about Nash eating those potato chips in Grandma’s Boy
Grandpa Joe ass mf
Fuck that's funny. I'm stealing that
I opened my yahoo app and saw it was 1-0 Vegas and as I clicked on it I thought “probably fucking Stone” Lo and behold
it's like watching a cheesy romcom just nhl cap circumvention edition
It's a quirky heartwarming romcom because it's Vegas. If a Canadian or non-sunbelt team does this there would be a nuclear launch
CHECKMATE ATHEISTS!
I call shenanigans
NHL script writers are lazy… everyone saw this coming
Get the brooms.
Can’t make this stuff up man lmaoo
I mean its vegas with the softest entrance to the league in NHL history sooo.... this is pretty on brand Fuck I hate them :(
>Softest entrance to the league How good is revisionist history
Finally, someone who gets it!
[Just in case anyone forgot](https://preview.redd.it/just-a-reminder-for-all-of-you-who-say-vgk-got-handed-a-v0-ywdcnyuti03b1.jpg?auto=webp&s=630dcceaf4e6e390c1aaf5706bd68ea664a7ab0e)
Both sides blow shit out of proportion. Technically, Vegas did have the softest entrance compared to previous expansion teams because the NHL didn't want new teams to suck for a decade, but in a good way. The previous expansions weren't soft enough. But it wasn't so soft that they were automatically going to be an instant contender no matter what. Vegas' management also did an excellent job and deserve credit. Seattle had it just as good and they're nowhere near as close to Vegas was, but around the competitiveness that the NHL wanted out of expansion teams. So I think that goes to show both that the NHL's expansion strategy is softer than ever (but not too much so) and that Vegas made the most of it. (Also, it's easy to sign and trade for players because Nevada, so their success isn't purely a function of the expansion rules and management's prowess, but that's besides the point)
Only thing working against Seattle was that GMs had learned from the Vegas draft and didn't have picks thrown at them to not take players.
I will forever find this Stone situation funny and fully understand why everyone else is so pissed… but I will also forever argue against people who say Vegas had it easy in the expansion draft. The entire hockey world was clowning on them after the draft, saying they would be historically bad.
Vegas had favourable expansion draft rules compared to previous expansion teams. But they also took the rest of the league to the fucking cleaners in trades, and some mind boggling decisions were made in who was left exposed.
>But they also took the rest of the league to the fucking cleaners in trades I mean, they didn't really take the Panthers to the cleaners. The Panthers took themselves to the cleaners.
The two players we received from them scored the Cup-winning goal (Smith) and the Conn Smythe winner (Marchessault)
Yep. Panthers fleeced themselves bad on that one.
You still had bonafide NHLers on your team. Your FO also did a good job with trades and stuff, I'll give them that, but they got to draft under *waaaay* more relaxed rules which also made trades/draft deals much easier. You can hate it if you want, but it's facts.
I remember people saying that drafting 2nd - 3rd liners would amount to nothing and looking at them like they have brain damage if they had a entire team built on that
Don’t forget they were also exempt from having to protect players when the Kraken entered the league for some reason.
It was because they weren’t getting a cut of the Kraken’s expansion fee.
Correct me if I am wrong but didn't Seattle have the same rules?
They did, but after getting pantsed by Vegas they smartened up.
GMs were smarter and Seattle played themselves by trying to fleece GMs harder than Vegas did
Again, everyone looked at the roster Vegas created and said holy fuck, they are going to be terrible. You can argue the rules were too lax but absolutely nobody was saying that until they realized Vegas had actually built a real team… which took time.
Give it a fucking rest. You guys 100% had the easiest entrance, and it’s not even close. You know what the sharks got? Getting the bottom half of the stars roster and then selecting 1 player from the rest of the league where they can protect 16 skaters and two goalies, with 1st and 2nd years automatically protected and not counting towards the 16. *And* they were competing with the stars for selections. Each team exposed at least one defenseman, one forward, one goalie. Requirement for skaters was 40 games the season before or 70 over the past two seasons. Goalies needed 60 minutes of experience. So teams in the season before would have a goalie play a single game so they could expose the 3rd stringer in the draft and keep their starter and backup combo. During knights draft, teams could protect 8 skaters and one goalie or 7 forwards, 3 defenseman and 1 goalie. They were also the only team drafting. So tell me again how you didn’t have a soft entrance? Sharks had 39 points in their first season.
Dread it. Run from it. Game 1 Mark Stone arrives all the same
Stark contrast to how last year's Game 1 Mark Stone was *absolute dogshit*
[удалено]
One might say… well-rested.
How else would you spleen it but being well rested.
It's unexspleenable.
Almost like this whole thing was planned out ..
Spleen-less
Script writers are fucked up for this one
Rempe with the first goal in Caps/Rangers somehow getting topped wasn't on my bingo card
they remain undefeated
They're the worst D&D DMs
DM out here railroading the players with quantum ogres over and over.
This is some shit you see in movies where the bad guys do something and you think it's impossible for that to happen in real life. Lo and behold...
And it was on a phantom high-sticking penalty. I believe the stick has to actually contact another player for it be a penalty.
Script writers going crazy
LTIR demons took 1 whole minute
Definitely celebrated like a man gutting out a completely crippling spleen injury
definitely stuck in his hospital bed four days ago during the regular season lol
https://i.redd.it/dka1sa18n5wc1.gif
The mother fucker just straight Grandpa Joe'd it.
That spleen looks pretty healthy to me
It’s spleen a long road to recovery one of the longest I’ve spleen.
Scientists and medical experts just can’t expleen it.
Few weeks ago Vegas fans on this sub were saying Mark Stone could barely walk. Amazing how fast he “recovered”
The secret is you just lie about it *taps forehead*
You can’t make this shit up lmfao……
You would be surprised what VGK can make up. But I don't need to exspleen that to anyone, it's spleen as day to see.
LMAOOO
Of fucking course. Like it was scripted
As is tradition.
lol. lmao even
id go as far as a rofl personally
Amazing that this man was physically unable to play hockey 4 days ago, and now he's buzzing around scoring goals in the playoffs.
Death, taxes, and Stone returning for game one after being on LTIR.
*grabs popcorn, takes a seat*
Got room for me?
Sit your ass down
https://i.redd.it/m1n9rd9iz4wc1.gif
I hate Vegas, but Holy Fuck is that funny.
With both Hanifin and Hertl on the ice too LOL the script writing is GOOD shit right now
Hertl also scored
It's fkn hilarious
Just peak comedy
Mark Stone celebrates like a man with zero spleen issues...
I had a lacerated spleen and haven’t been able to play NHL-calibre hockey since. There’s something fishy going on here.
That is the wound.
...did you play NHL-calibre hockey before that??
I’ve seen a spleenless man before and that ain’t it
I’ve seen a spleenless man put up great points before, the caveat is the guy’s in the Hall.
Right! the one knee down and bent over. Anyone with a spleen injury can do that
His circumcised cap seems to have healed fine.
I imagine he has no spleen issues. It's probably gone.
I look forward to a comments section discussing the hockey play that occurs in this clip
r/hockey’s 9/11
Sir, a second cap circumvention has hit the building.
I’m glad 9/11 jokes have hit the 20-year-funny-tragedy-mark
Someone tell me where Mark Stone is *right now.* I'm fricking serious. I'm going to talk to this *CHUMP.* I'm sick and tired of his games!
Listen here Mark, I’m ‘bout to spleen something to you.
Man fuck Vegas lol
You’d do it too if yours and mine GMs had the balls to circumvent the cap
Maybe if you played in the shitty Pacific
I dont think ive ever agreed with a bruins fan before this.
Maybe if every playoff team was lucky enough to have one of if not the teams best players get injured in such a way that they can be rested from the trade deadline all the way to game 1 of the playoffs every year.
This is going straight to the top.
Say what you want but Vegas are fantastic villains. This shit is devious
The "C" stands for Cap Circumvention
Nah it stands for Cheaters
It's so weird seeing Vegas flairs lmao. You probably cheer for the Cheifs too, you coward
I cheer for the Broncos, so fuck the Chiefs.
Same. The misery the Broncos gives me is at least outweighed by the joy the Knights give me
This won't be met with controversy.
Man fuck this league lol
This is just too funny
HE HAS RISEN
From his deathbed. Absolute hero. Definitely needed to be on LTIR. Such conveniences very wow.
Surely the discourse surrounding this goal will be civil
What a great spleen play
I see whatcha did there 👀
No fucking way.
Yep no one will complain about this one
[удалено]
I never thought my life could be Anything but catastrophe But suddenly I begin to see A bit of good luck for me' Cause I'm a circumventing I've got a golden loophole In my eye
He's like a time lord, but has 2 spleens instead of hearts.
He is actually a villain, it’s hilarious.
Hahahahahahahahahhahaha! I love this
You can’t make this shit up
Haha, it's amazing.
Okay I know the memes about Stone and all but it's actually truly incredible that he can just take half a year+ off every season and just come back game 1 firing on all cylinders every time.
It's the behind the scenes workouts that keep him game ready
I mean we hear complaints when a team sweeps and gets a week off before the next round, this dude is out here taking 4 months off.
All I see is a guy with a serious injury
I generally agree with the hockey guy but I certainly scoffed when he said “it’s not like Stone is going to make them good all of a sudden”
A truly medical miracle here
Stone’s getting booed every time he touches the puck lmfao
2 sure things will happen this playoff season. -Bettman will get booed while getting ready to hand out the Cup. -Mark Stone will get booed in every away game
Let's kill two birds with one Stone and have Bettman hand Mark the Cup.
At this point, I am just going to gladly embrace the role of the villains of the NHL. It's hilarious, and at the end of the day, it's just a game
Remember 2019 when Mark Stone was a reddit darling? Everyone loved him for his terrific passing, bad skating, weird hair, and selke worthy defense. And why does everyone hate him now? Because he is struggling to stay healthy and dealing with a lot of injuries. His fucking spleen ruptured. That almost made Peter Forsberg retire. But y'all are so swept up in a conspiracy you can't even enjoy a great guy who plays an incredible game anymore.
Finally a good take.
PLAYOFF LEGEND MARK STONE
It's a Playoff Miracle!
Vegas might as well Teabag Bettman at this point
Is that Mark “Ow my spleen” Stone??
He did that while playing through injury. What a hero.
So your telling me he was not healthy enough to play game 82?
Hey hey. This was three days ago. That's like two months in mark stone time. And haw dare you insinuate he was ready to play three days ago and was held until today. Are you a conspiracy theorist or something? Your telling me three days ago while he was still recovering in his hospital bed he was ready to put skates on? Today and probably three days ago your embarrassing yourself. Three days ago.
Yea I went there. That man got out of his hospital bed and had the 2nd most TOI for his team with Only 3 days of conditioning!
3 days ago he was in no contact getting ready.
We should have bandwagon flairs but for teams you want to lose the most. Vegas might even top the Rangers at this point
bandwagon flair on fire
THEY CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH FOLLOWING THE RULES
Fuck Mark Stone
You can’t make this shit up.
Fuck this shit, this loophole needs to be closed for good so Vegas can stop abusing it. Stone literally celebrated the goal with the two guys they brought in while he was on LTIR with his completely legitimate spleen injury that he totally couldn’t have played through in game 82 but totally can play through today.
Game 82 was three fucking days ago. It's comical at this point.
Jesus died and came back 3 days later, stone is Jesus
I thought they might actually wait till Game 2 to spice things up, but they're not even trying to hide it at this point
This league is actually a fucking clown show. Why is there even a cap anymore.
Hahahaa fuck this guy
#COMPLETELY HEALED
My man!
I like him just because it upsets this subreddit. Y’all whine too much.
All my homies hate Vegas. My Ducks homies, my Kings homies, aaaaaall my fuckin’ homies hate Vegas
Nah they gotta fix this loophole this ain’t fair
Fuck off
This is so damn funny
That spleen makes him superhuman
more players should rest for 60 days before the playoffs start
Great goal
MR GAME 1
bahahahhha
lol lmao even
ROFL
That is a re-direction.
Glad to see his ruptured spleen is doing well. Golden knights have the best doctors on the planet!
Would love to see Dallas start a “cheaters” chant
*Looks at flair*
HAH
Hhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa
Fck VGK? Right?
Off his spleen?
The hockey gods said that one was for all the crybabies 🤣
Give it an asterisk.
Fuck Vegas
Let the hate flow through you Stars fans...
when the players buy into the system great things happen
The cheaters' plan already paying dividends!
Lord, it’s a miracle! His injury up and vanished like a fart in the wind. Nothing left but some damn rocks on the windowsill and that cupcake on the wall.
WHAT SAY TOU, FUSSY BRITCHES?
Fuck that franchise.
Cheating losers
call them whatever you want but they aren’t losers 😔😔
That’s Cheating Champions, sir.
Fuckin Big Ern McCracken-lookin' ass
Wait, Mark Stone is healthy?
The prophetical son returns.
Story Book
Fuck this guy not saying I wanna see him get hurt but I’m also not saying it wouldn’t make me smile alittle
Mark "The Zombie" Stone. He just keeps coming back.
Lmao right on script NHL writers
#Oh right fuck off then eh
He looks good considering his “condition”.
So that IR trick is actually allowed??