The league did make a higher caliber of player available for Vegas as compared to previous expansion drafts (fewer players could be protected), but nobody expected the success they've had. A fair amount of their players really blossomed, like William Karlson, Jonathan Marchessault, and Nate Schmidt. Marc-Andre Fleury is far and away playing the best hockey of his career. He was finally taught better fundamentals, like not getting way out of position after making tough saves, which used to happen all the time in Pittsburgh. He's clearly been coached up better in Vegas than he was in Pittsburgh and the Golden Knights overall are very well coached and disciplined, they beat Winnipeg primarily by capitalizing on the Jets' mistakes. Other than that it was a very even series with Winnipeg overall winning the territory battle. Players like James Neal are playing much better two-way hockey; when he was a Penguin, Neal languished near the circles to try and get off his deadly shot and did little else; he was a pure one-trick pony then but now he's a ferocious forechecker and very conscientious defensively.
It'll be interesting to see if the same rules apply for Seattle's expansion draft as for Vegas's.
