The Vegas Golden Knights were not supposed to be this good. In fact, they weren’t supposed to be good at all.
You can say you were one of those people that said the team would be contenders. You could even say you thought they’d make the playoffs. But, you’d be lying. No one believed and were confident in that belief that the Golden Knights would make a run and be contending for the Stanley Cup in their inaugural season. Once, 500 to 1 odds, here they are.
The little expansion team that could pic.twitter.com/IHt1u7XDjU
— y-Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) May 20, 2018
After booting a strong Winnipeg Jets team in five games, Vegas will take on the winner of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Washington Capitals series and not only do they have a chance, but they have a good chance of winning the NHL’s biggest prize. Should it be Tampa (which it looks like it might be), it will be the official Lightning versus the team who caught lightning in a bottle. It’s hard to know who the favorite is.
This Is It
The kicker here is that this may be the only shot Vegas has here. A roster full of under-valued contracts, this organization will only have this combination of players and deals together once. Contributors will be signed to extensions at much higher rates, some will leave the team having proven they’re worth the investment and the Golden Knights will no longer have a clean slate with a zero dollar balance sheet to start from.
The best way to describe this particular roster is to suggest that there are nearly 23 players on one-year deals looking for their next payday. Imagine if you’re team had that kind of motivation? When you add the financial incentive to the Cinderella story that is this season, it’s no wonder this club has found success.
WESTERN
CONFERENCE
CHAMPS pic.twitter.com/iHfHwqpwcv
— y-Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) May 20, 2018
The roster will now have to sign David Perron, James Neal, William Karlsson, and a handful of others and that won’t come cheaply. This is it. This is the only real shot the team has to keep this group of guys together and if they want to win, their best shot is now.
Can they do it one more time? Four more games? One more opponent? Unless you’re from Tampa or Washington, it seems like every fan of NHL hockey hopes so. The league couldn’t write a better story.
