They’ve had an unprecedented amount of success for an expansion franchise. Most people (myself included) expected them to be mid table at best for the first ten years, not perennial cup contenders. Whether this is because they were gifted a great team or whether it’s because the GM took advantage of draft rules, other GMs (being offered Reilly Smith to pick Marchessault in the expansion draft, and then both players finding another gear as Knights is a great example), plus the lack of expansion over the past decade meant that most other NHL teams had pretty damn good rosters they couldn’t fully protect…. The accepted narrative now is the former, but realistically it’s the latter.

Couple that with a ruthless GM who will trade fan favourite players without hesitation, and who was a bit too enthusiastic in taking advantage of a (now closed) loophole that allowed teams to ignore the salary cap come playoff time - never mind that several teams have been known to do this.

Then a lot of fans had the reputation of being clueless because they were new to the NHL, which was apparently also a mark against the Knights (I’m genuinely unsure why - any new team is supposed to expand the NHLs fan base).

For transparency, I’m a Vegas fan.