Vegas Golden Knights, it is nice to finally meet you

We’ve had to wait a while but it seems that we are finally starting to see the real version of the Vegas Golden Knights.

After entering the NHL with an almighty explosion, reaching the postseason in each of its first two years, the Vegas Golden Knights were seen as a genuine Stanley Cup contender heading into 2019-20.

However, the first-half of the regular season was plagued by a plethora of flaws and a serious lack of inconsistency.

The Golden Knights lurched from one disastrous result to the next, and an inability to play up to their potential led to Gerard Gallant being canned.

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It was a decision that hurt the fanbase given what Gallant had meant after crafting a roster of misfits into a team that made the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural year.

And salt was rubbed into a deep wound when the Knights hired Peter DeBoer, the architect of the heartbreaking first round loss to the San Jose Sharks last year, as their new Head Coach.

However, life must go on but for a while the grass didn’t look greener as Vegas still showed their old ugly warts under DeBoer.

Poor starts to games, lack of execution on special teams, subpar goaltending and the ability to implode at any minute all reared their ugly head under DeBoer on far too many occasions.

But, time is a good healer and it appears that the Knights have finally bought into what DeBoer is selling.

Facing the gauntlet of a hellish five-game homestand, the only silver lining for the Knights was the fact that they were entrenched in a bad Pacific Division.

With the likes of the St. Louis Blues, the Washington Capitals and the surging Tampa Bay Lightning all in town, it was possible that the Golden Knights could be swept on the homestand and that would have put them in a difficult position down the stretch.

This roster has too much talent to struggle for large chunks, though, and it seemed that something just clicked in that locker room.

Because, one by one, the Golden Knights knocked off elite team after elite team to go a perfect 5-0-0 on the homestand, while doing it in impressive fashion.

They shutout the New York Rangers and they out-duelled the Lightning, the Capitals and the Blues, before finishing the homestand in style by winning a crucial game against a desperate Florida Panthers team.

After those heroics, you could have almost forgiven the Golden Knights for putting up a stinker in Anaheim against the rebuilding Ducks on Sunday.

And, while the Knights did try their best to hand the game to Anaheim, they gutted out a win thanks to Shea Theodore‘s overtime winner against the team that left him unprotected in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft.

Although it wasn’t pretty, the Vegas Golden Knights did what they had to do in order to carve out a season-high six-game win streak.

And there is a different feel to this Vegas team now. Its big hitters are delivering and they are starting to get elite goaltending from Marc-Andre Fleury.

Alec Martinez has come in and made an impact while it is likely that the Golden Knights will add another piece or two  by the Trade Deadline today.

Granted, there are still things to work on but the Vegas Golden Knights are finally starting to look like the team we all thought they were.

And, if this is the real Vegas Golden Knights, then they are peaking at just the perfect time, which spells bad news for the rest of the NHL.