As silly as this potential team would be, I think they'd gladly continue to take the experience of the team the past 2 years. SC final in year 1, probably would have gone to the conference final at least had Pavelski not almost died from a freak accident. Looking like a beast team again this year...

For an expansion team playing an ice sport in the desert, they basically skipped over Arizona's 20 years of building a fan base in a matter of 2 years..... That is virtually priceless.

Absolutely agree

One thing of note, when doing something like this though, without That regular season they may have a much deeper core that starts showing up already. They would have traded Neal, Perron for sure, and maybe even players like McNabb, Schmidt etc.

That run was surprising to everyone including McPhee and Co. 90% of .The players on that original team were almost never supposed to be here in year 3

Also, if that amazing first year run doesn't happen, I'm not sure Fleury is still on the team. They may have flipped him to a playoff team that year for a high first round pick. I bet we wouldn't have had the rivalry with San Jose so maybe he even goes there.