How Vegas Built a Contender From the 2015 NHL Draft Class
Updated 09 Jul, 2026
The 2015 NHL Draft will always be remembered as the Connor McDavid draft.
That was true before the first pick was announced, and it is still true more than a decade later. McDavid was the generational prize, the player every team at the bottom of the standings dreamed of landing, and the face of a class that was loaded even beyond the No. 1 pick.
But the draft did not end with McDavid.
Behind him came Jack Eichel at No. 2, Dylan Strome at No. 3, Mitch Marner at No. 4 and Noah Hanifin at No. 5. Ten years later, three of those top-five picks are together in Las Vegas. Eichel, Marner and Hanifin were drafted by Buffalo, Toronto and Carolina, but they are now part of the same Golden Knights core.
That is not just a fun roster coincidence. It is a very Vegas way to build a contender.
2015 NHL Draft Connection
Vegas now has three top-five picks from the Connor McDavid draft class, plus two more players selected later in the same draft.
Vegas Player | 2015 Draft Pick | Drafted By | Vegas Role |
|---|---|---|---|
Jack Eichel | No. 2 overall | Buffalo Sabres | Elite center |
Mitch Marner | No. 4 overall | Toronto Maple Leafs | Top-line playmaker |
Noah Hanifin | No. 5 overall | Carolina Hurricanes | Top-four defenseman |
Jeremy Lauzon | No. 52 overall | Boston Bruins | Physical depth |
Adin Hill | No. 76 overall | Arizona Coyotes | Cup-winning goalie |
Key takeaway: Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner and Noah Hanifin were all selected inside the top five of the 2015 NHL Draft. Vegas did not draft any of them, but the Golden Knights have turned that class into a major part of their current contender.
The Vegas Golden Knights currently have five players from the 2015 NHL Draft connected to their roster: Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner, Noah Hanifin, Jeremy Lauzon and Adin Hill.
Three of them were selected inside the top five. Hill, meanwhile, was taken later in the draft and went on to become a Stanley Cup-winning goalie in Vegas.
The most striking part is the top of the table. Vegas did not exist as an NHL franchise when Eichel, Marner and Hanifin were drafted, but the Golden Knights now have three of the first five picks from one of the strongest draft classes of the modern era.
The top of the 2015 draft came with enormous expectations.
McDavid was the prize. Eichel was viewed as a franchise center in almost any other draft year. Marner became one of the defining players of Toronto’s skilled core. Hanifin entered the league as a smooth-skating defenseman with top-pair potential.
Their careers started in different places, but the original idea was similar. Each player was drafted to become a major part of another team’s future.
Eichel was meant to lead Buffalo out of its rebuild. Marner was supposed to help Toronto turn elite skill into postseason success. Hanifin started in Carolina before later moving through Calgary. Each represented a long-term plan.
Vegas has never been especially interested in waiting for long-term plans.
The Golden Knights have built their identity around urgency. They have chased established talent, made bold trades, moved on from popular players and treated every competitive window like something to attack rather than protect. Their rise has not looked like a traditional rebuild because it was never meant to.
That is what makes the 2015 connection so fitting.
Vegas did not draft these players. Vegas collected them.
Jack Eichel’s career changed when he arrived in Vegas.
In Buffalo, he carried the weight of being the No. 2 pick in the McDavid draft and the face of a struggling franchise. The talent was always obvious, but the team around him never reached the level needed to turn that talent into meaningful playoff success.
Vegas offered a different environment.
Eichel did not have to rescue a rebuild. He had to elevate a contender. That is a very different job, and it suited both player and team.
The Golden Knights needed a true high-end center. Eichel gave them one. He brought size, skill, speed through the neutral zone and the ability to drive offense against top competition.
He also became one of the clearest examples of how Vegas operates.
The Golden Knights saw a star player available, accepted the risk and moved aggressively. They were not waiting for a prospect to become their No. 1 center someday. They went and found one.
Mitch Marner adds another layer to the story.
For years, Marner was one of the defining players in Toronto. He was part of a core that had star power, regular-season success and constant playoff pressure. His skill was never in question. His production was never the issue. The debate around him was always tied to expectations, contract weight and whether the Maple Leafs could turn their talent into a deeper postseason run.
In Vegas, the context is different.
Marner does not arrive as the lone solution. He joins a roster that already has Eichel, Mark Stone, Tomas Hertl, Noah Hanifin, Shea Theodore and a structure built around winning now.
His move to Vegas became official in July 2025, when Toronto traded him to the Golden Knights after he signed an eight-year, $96 million contract.
That move turned the 2015 draft connection from a curiosity into a headline.
Eichel and Hanifin were already there. Marner made it impossible to ignore.
In Toronto, Marner was part of the question. In Vegas, he can be part of the answer.
Noah Hanifin makes the connection feel more complete.
This is not only about star forwards. Hanifin gives Vegas a top-end defenseman from the same draft class, which turns the story from coincidence into something that touches the whole roster.
Eichel is the center. Marner is the playmaker. Hanifin is the defenseman.
That is a strong spine from one draft class, especially for an organization that had no part in selecting any of them.
Hanifin may not bring the same headline value as Eichel or Marner, but his importance is obvious. Contenders need defensemen who can skate, move the puck, handle tough minutes and stabilize games when the pace rises. Hanifin gives Vegas that.
His route to the Golden Knights also fits the larger pattern. He was drafted by Carolina, moved to Calgary and eventually became part of the Vegas blue line. Another high-end 2015 pick, originally meant to shape a different franchise, now sits inside the Golden Knights’ win-now structure.
The 2015 draft connection does not stop with the top five.
Adin Hill was taken much later in the same draft, going No. 76 overall to Arizona. He did not enter the league with the same franchise-player label as Eichel, Marner or Hanifin, but his Vegas story carries its own weight.
Hill became part of the Golden Knights’ championship history.
He was not the obvious headline name from the 2015 class. He was not drafted as a future superstar. But in Vegas, he became the goalie who helped deliver the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.
That gives the connection more substance.
The Golden Knights do not just have three premium 2015 picks on the roster. They also have a goalie from that same class who already played a defining role in the organization’s biggest achievement.
In a draft remembered for McDavid, Hill is a reminder that legacy can come from unexpected places.
Jeremy Lauzon gives Vegas another link to the same draft year.
Selected No. 52 overall by Boston, Lauzon is not the centerpiece of this story, but he adds to the pattern. The Golden Knights’ current roster has more 2015 draft DNA than most teams would expect, and it stretches beyond the obvious star names.
That matters because the best Vegas teams have rarely been built around one type of player.
They have stars, but they also value depth, size, defense, experience and matchup flexibility. Lauzon fits more into that supporting category, but supporting pieces are part of how Vegas has built itself from the beginning.
The Golden Knights have never been a team defined only by the players at the top of the lineup. Their identity has always depended on how aggressively they fill out the rest of the roster too.
There is something almost too perfect about this group ending up in Las Vegas.
The Golden Knights were not around in 2015. They did not lose games for lottery odds. They did not sit through years of development hoping one draft class would eventually save them. They entered the league, became competitive immediately and have spent the years since acting like waiting is optional.
That has made them one of the NHL’s most fascinating organizations.
Vegas does not cling to the traditional idea of roster building. It identifies windows, attacks weaknesses and moves quickly when elite players become available. Sometimes that approach looks ruthless. Often, it looks expensive. But it has also made the Golden Knights one of the league’s most consistently ambitious teams.
Eichel, Marner, Hanifin, Hill and Lauzon all fit into that story in different ways.
Some arrived as stars. Some arrived as solutions. Some arrived as depth. But together, they show how Vegas has turned another team’s draft history into its own competitive advantage.
The 2015 NHL Draft still belongs to Connor McDavid.
He remains the defining player of the class, and nothing about Vegas changes that. But the Golden Knights have created one of the draft’s most interesting second acts.
Eichel, Marner and Hanifin were all selected within the first five picks. Hill came later and became a Stanley Cup-winning goalie. Lauzon adds another layer of depth from the same year. A draft class once scattered across the league has become part of the same roster in Vegas.
It is a strange, fascinating piece of NHL symmetry.
The class that began with McDavid now has a different kind of legacy in the desert. Not as a rebuild. Not as a patient plan. Not as a draft-day vision.
As a collection.
And that might be the most Golden Knights version of the story possible.
May 30, 2026Carolina Hurricanes’ Long Road Back to the Stanley Cup Final