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Originally Posted by MTK
I don’t follow hockey at all so can someone explain to me how an expansion team gets to the finals? Were they allowed to pick off other teams players or something when putting the roster together?
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I'll try to keep this simple because I'm not an expert or anything, but basically the Golden Knights were allowed to pick 1 player from each team.
All other teams were allowed to keep certain players, the rules being 8 forwards/defensemen and 1 goalie. So each team had to select players to keep, but it left the bottom of the roster vulnerable. GMGM (nickname given to former Caps GM George McPhee, the architect of the Knights' roster) made a good strategy focusing on speed and a strong defense. He also made deals with certain teams where he agreed not to draft an exposed player in exchange for getting another desirable player on a good deal for the Knights.
One of the reasons they've had so much success this season is because they kept things simple. It's hard for teams to keep pace, they are very strong between the bluelines (i.e. they make it hard for teams to gain the offensive zone) and they play a simple game very well (i.e. they don't try slick passing, or gimmicky schemes that work well in the regular season but not in the playoffs). Nobody expected them to do anything this year given the lack of success by expansion teams in every sport.
Oh yeah and I forgot to mention their best player is 3 time Stanley Cup Champion (and possible playoffs MVP contender) Marc-Andre Fleury. They were able to get him because the strong play of Matt Murray (Fleury got hurt, Murray stepped in and did a more-than-capable job of backstopping the Pens on the way to another Stanley Cup. At expansion time they could only keep one so they kept the young guy who they thought was the future). This year, up until the Finals he had been the single best player in the playoffs with an amazing .95 save percentage. However the Caps have scored 7 goals in 2 games on him so his percentage has dipped, but it remains to be seen whether we can keep the scoring up.
TL;DR: GMGM still got it (he's responsible for the core of this Caps team and for building the Knights roster from scratch), the NHL kinda relaxed rules a bit (although I'm hazy on the details of it, that's just what my friends say), and a young team with a veteran netminder balled out because nobody expected them to do anything (just ask the Caps how much better it is without the weight of expectations, that is partly responsible for their postseason success this year).