After Bill Foley agreed to pay a whopping $500 million for the right to put a hockey team in the middle of the Mojave Desert Jeremy Kerley Jersey Elite , the NHL decided his Vegas Golden Knights deserved a chance for a swift return on that investment.

If the other NHL owners had known just how huge Foley’s reward would be – and how incredibly quickly he would get it – they probably wouldn’t have been quite so nice to the new guy.

It’s too late now, though. After reaping a bonanza from one of the most generous expansion drafts in sports history, the Golden Knights are two victories away from an unbelievable Stanley Cup Final berth.

A brand-new team in a league that has been around for 101 years already has a Pacific Division title, two playoff series victories and a 2-1 lead on the Winnipeg Jets in the Western Conference finals.

”I don’t think anybody saw us here,” Vegas goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. ”It’s been a lot of fun to be part of it. Really proud of this team and the way these guys have been working. We deserve to be here.”

Fleury and the other players accomplishing this feat refer to themselves as the Golden Misfits, yet few of Vegas’ expansion draft selections were truly undesired by the clubs that lost them 11 months ago.

Instead, general manager George McPhee took full advantage of his opportunities to compile an uncommonly talented roster, and coach Gerard Gallant turned that roster into a brilliant team in shockingly swift fashion. But it all started with the draft that allowed McPhee to build this monster in less than a year.

”It had a big impact,” McPhee acknowledged. ”The (expansion draft) rules were favorable. Gave us something to work with, and gave this team an opportunity to be a good team.”

The NHL allowed its teams to protect only seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie, or eight skaters and one goalie. By way of comparison, when the NHL last expanded in 2000, teams were allowed to protect a whopping nine forwards, five defensemen and a goalie Cowboys Game Jerseys , or seven forwards, three defensemen and two goalies.

The league also required teams to expose players with significant NHL experience who were under contract through next season, closing loopholes and helping Vegas even more. Third-line forwards and top-four defensemen were available from almost every team.

The easiest acquisition was Fleury, of course. The Knights got a three-time Stanley Cup winning goalie with 375 career victories for nothing, and he has largely stayed healthy while playing at a formidable level.

The Knights also landed the likes of James Neal, a proven veteran talent with nine consecutive 20-goal seasons. He scored 25 goals while providing steady veteran leadership.

They plucked William Karlsson, a clearly gifted forward who had yet to reach his full potential with two NHL teams. The Swede swiftly became one of the NHL’s best players, racking up 43 goals – an NHL record for an expansion team’s first season – and 35 assists along with a plus-49 rating.

And the expansion draft terms allowed McPhee to get creative in trades with teams hoping to keep players who couldn’t fit under the protection umbrella. For instance, the Knights ended up with Reilly Smith in a trade because Florida wanted them to draft Jonathan Marchessault – and the two ex-Panthers became two of the Knights’ top four scorers.

The draft bounty isn’t the only reason these upstart Knights have immediately entered their Golden years.

All of this talent wouldn’t have won so many games without Gallant. He built a balanced, disciplined team that has rolled four lines and played relentless two-way hockey while mining untapped talents such as Karlsson and Eric Haula, who scored 29 goals after never managing more than 15 in Minnesota.

”Gerard has done a terrific job of making this a team,” McPhee said. ”He has really brought a lot of players along, and they’ve played better than they’ve played anywhere else.”

Foley bought this opportunity with his $500 million expansion fee, yet nobody in the sports world expected the Golden Knights to put it all together so swiftly. That includes the 73-year-old Foley, who raised eyebrows around the league when he set a public goal of bringing the Stanley Cup to Las Vegas within six years – a goal he later revised to maybe eight years.

Instead Youth Detroit Lions Jerseys , there’s an increasingly strong chance the Golden Knights will parade the Stanley Cup down the Strip one month from now. There are 12 other NHL teams that have never won a championship, along with seven franchises that haven’t raised the Cup in at least 23 years.

Potential NHL expansion owners in Seattle and Houston are probably thinking $500 million was a bargain, since the expansion fee is likely to go up when the league eventually awards its 32nd franchise. It also seems improbable that the NHL would ever make it this easy to build a team again.

But nothing will erase the Golden Knights’ remarkable embrace of this unusual moment in hockey history.

”It was important to the league and to Las Vegas and to Bill Foley that this franchise had a chance to work,” McPhee said. ”That people that were coming to the games could enjoy the product and become real fans, and we could grow some deep roots in this marketplace. So I didn’t mind the rules.”

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AP freelance writer W.G. Ramirez in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

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The bar was set high for Brian Urlacher when he joined the Chicago Bears as a first-round middle linebacker back in 2000.

Few teams are as closely identified with one position as the Bears are at middle linebacker with players like Bill George, Dick Butkus and Mike Singletary personifying the Monsters of the Midway on the way to Hall of Fame careers.

Urlacher lived up to that lofty standard and will join that talented trio in Canton when he is inducted into the hall on Saturday.

"It wasn't even on my mind when I played," Urlacher said after getting voted into the hall on his first try in February. "I didn't think this would ever be a possibility. So many things have to go right. You have to stay healthy, you have to play well, you've got to win some games, do some things. This is the summit of playing football right here."

Urlacher did not make himself available for interviews leading up to inductions.

Urlacher was a different type of middle linebacker than his predecessors in Chicago, the perfect piece in the NFL of the 2000s with the speed and coverage skills that allowed him to play safety in college. That helped him match up against running backs and tight ends and roam sideline to sideline.

He also had the ability to drop deep into coverage, making him the perfect middle linebacker on coach Lovie Smith's Tampa 2 defense that Urlacher helped make so stout in Chicago on the way to a Super Bowl appearance following the 2006 season.

"I've had an opportunity to be around so many great linebackers, but some of them are just made for the position," Smith said. "Derrick Brooks is made to be a Will linebacker, an outside guy in our system. Brian Urlacher Durham Smythe Jersey Elite , you can't draw it up any better. Everybody knew that he looked the part and he played the part."

Smith knew about Urlacher's physical talents when he arrived as the new coach in Chicago in 2004 after Urlacher had made the Pro Bowl in each of his first four seasons, and was a two-time All-Pro. An early team meeting taught him about Urlacher's mentality when he told the defense he expected the unit to lead the league in turnovers. Urlacher stayed after and set the tone for those dominant Bears defenses.

"He said: 'Coach, let me get this right. In order for us to lead the league we have to wait for the offense to turn the ball over?'" Smith recalled. "That was the first time I'd looked at it that way. Brian called it a takeaway on the defensive side of the ball. The offense turns the ball over. Defensively, your job is to take the ball away every time. No one bought into us taking the ball away as much as Brian did."

No defense took the ball away more than the Bears in the nine seasons Smith and Urlacher were together, with 292 takeaways. No linebacker other than fellow 2018 Hall of Fame inductee Ray Lewis took the ball away more than Urlacher during his 13-year career: 22 interceptions and 16 fumble recoveries.

Urlacher also had 41陆 sacks and finished his career as the Bears' all-time leading tackler. He won awards as the top defensive rookie in 2000, Defensive Player of the Year in 2005, earned five All-Pro selections, eight Pro Bowl bids and helped the Bears win four division titles.

"Brian was the best," said Packers quarterback and longtime NFC North rival Aaron Rodgers. "He was probably one of the smartest players I ever played against. Just a great feel for the scheme, the game, reading his keys. Just incredibly instinctual player. Great hands. Average elusiveness, I can say that, because I tackled him one time. But one of the best to ever do it at that position in an era where some of the louder guys maybe got the attention 鈥?expecting the middle linebacker to be a loud yeller or rah-rah guy. Brian went about it in a very classy way. Played the game the right way and was an incredible player."

Urlacher was not always destined for greatness. He was lightly recruited out of high school and ended up at New Mexico after Texas Tech didn't offer him a scholarship.

But he thrived with the Lobos and made himself a first-round pick.

"I've had some great freshmen, but from the minute he arrived, every coach stood up and took notice Korey Toomer Jersey Elite ," former New Mexico coach Dennis Franchione said. "I remember sometime in the first 10 days of two-a-days, six of the nine assistant coaches came in 鈥?although independently, I didn't think they talked about it 鈥?they said, 'Coach, when are you going to play Urlacher.' And I said, 'I'm not sure yet.' They said, 'I'll take him at my position.' I think that was everybody except the quarterback coach, the line coach and the receivers coach. That's how versatile he was. ...

"He was a heat-seeking missile from the time he arrived on campus. Not only that, he was a really coachable, bright young man. Made other people better. You can just go on and on about him."
AP Sports Writer Andrew Seligman contributed to this report.
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