Rozner: Vegas Golden Knights' trip to Cup Final no miracle
It's good to have stars. Even better to have superstars. Any sport, any time, and no one in their right mind would argue otherwise.
But you have to hand it to the Vegas Golden Knights. Unless you count goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury - who has played like the star he once was this postseason - the Golden Knights have reached the Stanley Cup Final in their first year of existence and they have done it with a roster filled to the top with role players.
Perhaps a better way to phrase it would be that the Knights have stunned the hockey world this season with players who fully understand and embrace their roles.
Do not confuse the two properties.
No disrespect intended. In fact, it's precisely the opposite. But their top line would be a good second line on a good team, and their next three lines are filled with third- and fourth-line players.
What makes it all work is they get a fourth-line effort from all four lines, and that's the difference between Vegas and most every NHL team.
Yes, they are fast. In a league where speed matters more than ever, the Knights are the fastest team, 1 through 18. They are fast in all three zones, and their backpressure is unmatched.
That's just effort. And it quickly became the identity of a group that had few players who had ever been together before training camp nine months ago.
They catch you from behind and it makes you feel slow, especially when you're getting that effort not just from their fourth line, but from all four lines.
Their forwards support their defense better than any team in the league, which allows the defense to be involved in the offense, knowing the forwards will backcheck like madmen.
That allows the Golden Knights to play fast in transition, turning defense into offense better than any team in the NHL.
And when they make a mistake, they get great goaltending from Fleury.
It's an amazing combination for a team that was 500-1 to win the Stanley Cup before the season.
But it's not an accident and it's not a miracle.
Sure, they got some breaks because of the expansion rules this time around, but when you pay $500 million for a franchise you probably deserve to be something better than a doormat the first 10 years.
When the Wild and Jackets had their first chance in 2000 - after an $80 million fee - teams were allowed to protect up to 15 players. This time, it was only 11 and the Golden Knights were not drafting against another expansion team.
Vegas also had months to negotiate with NHL teams, while the Wild and Jackets had 5 minutes to make a selection.
All the extra time gave Vegas a chance to deal with teams afraid of losing players. Just one example is Vegas promising not to take Minnesota's Jonas Brodin, instead trading for former first-rounder Alex Tuch and then drafting Erik Haula.
They got two good players in Florida's Reilly Smith and Jonathan Marchessault, got William Karlsson from Columbus and there's your top line.
Yes, they have some good players and they got some breaks along the way, but the key is that motivated players with a chip on their shoulders believed in coach Gerard Gallant, who stressed that they all mattered and then proved it by consistently rolling four lines.
This generation of players will play hard for you if you are consistent with your message and your actions.
So if you ask players to play fast, not only do you have to give them meaningful minutes throughout the season and playoffs. You also can't play fast if you're not playing, and the top lines can't play fast every shift if they're playing 25 minutes.
That balance has made the difference in close games.
What you also have here is GM George McPhee hiring good people and letting them do their jobs, which is not always the case in the NHL.
He brought in assistant GM Kelly McCrimmon, VP Murray Craven, player personnel director Vaughn Karpen and pro scout Kelly Kisio - all highly respected in the game - and they went out and found these players.
When asked about the Golden Knights' success a few days ago, McPhee deflected the credit and said it was his staff that did the traveling and scouting and is the reason for the current roster.
Now these players, coaches and front office members from all these different corners of North America and beyond have come together in a single season and gone further than some teams go in decades.
The result is "The Misfits" are in the Stanley Cup Final. It's an incredible story.
But it's no miracle.
brozner@dailyherald.com
• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.