Here’s one thing we know from the Vegas expansion draft: The team is clearly building for the future. Emphasis on future.

In basically every instance – from Anaheim, to Minnesota, to New York (Islanders) – where legitimately talented young players were exposed, Vegas opted to cut side deals with organizations, stockpiling other assets and draft picks in lieu of selecting players currently in their prime. Even the few reasonably talented veterans grabbed by the Knights – Marc Methot and David Perron immediately come to mind – are possible trade candidates within the next week or at the trade deadline.

We could debate the merit of that strategy until we’re blue in the face, but general manager George McPhee is playing the long game right now.

To that end, it’s interesting to examine what Vegas did in net. The first decision the Knights made when building their roster was coming to terms on a deal with the Pittsburgh Penguins to grab goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury – a starting-calibre goaltender, and one on a reasonably large contract. Names like Petr Mrazek, Philipp Grubauer, and Michal Neuvirth all could’ve been grabbed as long-term options, yet Vegas went with the 32-year-old Fleury.

So, how do we make sense of the Fleury move in light of all of the other non-moves made by Vegas on Wednesday? Ultimately I think it comes down to McPhee knowing that goaltending is a protect-at-all-costs position. Historically, the teams that have been blitzed out of buildings and eliminated from playoff contention early in seasons are the ones that simply don’t have any goaltending. And whether you’re a Fleury fan or not, I think you have to submit that he’s still a decent starter.

The data backs this up. If we observe performance over the last few seasons, we can see how early 30s Fleury stacks up against his competitors. If I told you that his save percentage is absolutely indiscernible from names like Cory Schneider, Tuukka Rask, and Henrik Lundqvist, would you believe me? Because it is. (2014-17 itemized below):

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Outside of the Carey Price/Devan Dubnyk/Braden Holtby bucket, all of these goaltenders look awfully similar. I think this says something about infrequent scoring and the sheer amount of goaltending talent around the league, but what’s not shown here are the teams that were absolutely crushed by not having one of these guys. When more than half of the league is stopping about 92 per cent of shots, and you’re a team like Winnipeg (90 per cent), Colorado (89 per cent), or Dallas (89 per cent), you’re at a tremendous disadvantage, night in and night out.

One thing we can reasonably expect from Vegas is, like most expansion teams historically, the need to get quality goaltending to stay competitive. Such is life if you are outshot every single night.

This is also historically accurate. If you look at the last nine expansion teams to enter the league, you can pretty much divide them into two groups – teams that had some semblance of goaltending, and teams that had no goaltending. Those groups can be separately categorized as teams that were at least marginally competitive versus teams that finished either last or close to last.

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The darker grey teams all finished with respectable goaltending performances and in every instance avoided the cellar. I guess the worst team of the group was Minnesota, who ended up only being better than five teams in the league, but again, that’s probably worth something to an expansion market that at a minimum wants to make sure their games are competitive. (Teams like the 1994 Florida Panthers and 2001 Columbus Blue Jackets had notably better first-year performances driven by solid goaltending.)

On the hierarchy of goaltender performance graphed earlier, we had Fleury as the 15th best stopper in the league on a rate basis. If Vegas can get anything close to the 15th best team save percentage –which, mind you, will rely to some degree on how their backup ends up playing for 20 or so games – then they have a real chance of at least icing a team that won’t get blown out of the building every night.

McPhee’s building for the future, but the Fleury acquisition strikes me as a short-term insurance policy to protect his team from the demoralizing expansion-year struggles experienced in other cities. That’s a purchase worth making.