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Golden Knights: one of the remarkable success stories in NHL history |
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The Buffalo Sabres have missed the playoffs for 10 consecutive seasons. The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t advanced past the first round since 2004. The Colorado Avalanche haven’t moved beyond the second round since 2004.
Meanwhile, the Vegas Golden Knights joined the NHL in 2017-18 as an expansion league and have reached the Conference championships three times in their first four seasons.
The Golden Knights have won seven playoff series thus far, and are favored to win their eighth against the Montreal Canadiens
Edmonton hasn’t won seven playoff series in the last 28 years.
The Golden Knights have changed how we will look at expansion teams.
This tale of expansion team success is one of the most remarkable stories in NHL history, even if the Golden Knights don’t get out of this round. If the Golden Knights do reach the Stanley Cup Final for a second time, this becomes movie material.
Should they win the Stanley Cup, this becomes a legendary start to a franchise. It would be like the Miracle Mets winning the World Series in 1969.
But the Mets were in their eighth season when they won it all, and they had never finished higher than ninth in the standings in their first seven seasons.
Owner Bill Foley, an ex-West Pointer, has made good decisions from the beginning, starting with the hiring of George McPhee as GM. McPhee moved upstairs to open up the GM chair for Kelly McCrimmon and the success has continued.
It started with the drafting of the initial roster. A more generous expansion draft set-up helped, and McPhee magnificently used the new rules to acquire more quality assets than any expansion team ever had before.
But the team has also traded and signed free agents wisely. Mark Stone was a trade acquisition. Max Pacioretty and Alex Pietrangelo were free agent signings. The Golden Knights signed Zach Whitecloud as a college free agent out of Bemidji State.
Most of the decisions they’ve made have been golden. Even when they made poor decisions, they have worked out, like when they decided Robin Lehner was the goalie for the future.
They tried unsuccessfully to move Fleury, but he stayed. Now here they are in a playoff run and Fleury is still the No. 1. He has won all eight games they needed to reach the semifinals.
The Golden Knights are as resilient as they are skillful. The Colorado Avalanche, a team boasting plenty of talented forwards, had them down 2-0 in the series before the Golden Knights stormed from behind to win in six games.
The hockey world still views them as a team in its infancy, but the Golden Knights view themselves as a group that has already been through plenty together. In four years, they have already played 60 playoff games.
And they believe strongly that they could play many more this season. History says the Golden Knights aren’t supposed to win this often this early in their existence, but thus far they haven’t followed tradition.
Their thinking is maybe there’s never been an expansion team as ready to play as they are. Maybe they become the standard by which future expansion teams are judged. If that is the case, I feel sorry for the Seattle Kraken. The Golden Knights are already a hard act to follow.
Blogger •HHOF Writer's column on the NHL • 
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