We only needed a single expansion draft in the salary cap era to learn that whipping up a mock draft is a fool's errand. When the Vegas Golden Knights poached players from the then-existing 30 franchises only four summers ago, they made the public look foolish twice, choosing a team that failed to resemble any of even the most thoughtful projections, and then managing to achieve immediate success despite many of us mocking their team.
Fortunately, not one group made out worse than the collection of competing general managers, who committed a series of mistakes that allowed the Golden Knights to emerge as a league power in less than a half decade.