The Vegas Golden Knights have had to face a lot of different problems to start this season. Given the nature of everything they’ve had to endure thus far, it’s definitely a less than ideal situation for a team looking to take a run for the Stanley Cup. But, the Knights are making the most of the opportunity.
The Vegas Golden Knights are in a position to win now, but when you have to deal with injuries right after the season starts, it’s never easy. Luckily, when it comes to the Knights, Old habits die hard.
The Vegas Golden Knights had high expectations for the team that they assembled during the off-season. After trading for both forward, Evgenii Dadonov and Nolan Patrick, the Knights surely thought this was their season.
Although not officially confirmed, I’d assume that multiple coaches, general managers, and teams were thinking that the Knights could be the team to beat this season. Looking at that statement now, it’s safe to say that didn’t age well. Or did it?
After a strong performance against the Seattle Kraken to start the season, the Vegas Golden Knights were thought to be legit this season. To be quite blunt, if you didn’t think the Knights were legit going into the season, you’re crazy. They’ve done nothing but when since coming into the league in 2017.
But, then you look at the next four games that the Vegas Golden Knights played and we’ll you might’ve been right. After getting blown out against the Los Angeles Kings in their second game of the season, it was hard to gauge exactly what to think about the Knights. Was their first win against the Kraken a win against a weak roster? Or are the Kings actually going to be a true winner this season? It brought up a lot of mixed emotions clouded by anger that the Knights were going to be without star forwards, Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty, for the foreseeable future.
The Turnaround
However, then you fast forward to where the Vegas Golden Knights are today and you think “This team, depleted as they are, is at .500 on the season”, well yes they are. The Knights road stretch that just took place helped them out greatly, which is quite odd, but I’m not complaining.
The Vegas Golden Knights played a total of seven games and six of those games were on the road. In those seven games they played, they went 5-2 with 23 goals scored and only 19 goals allowed. Which, 19 goals allowed isn’t great, but at the end of the day, a win is a win and that’s what matters.
Now, some people will probably question the level of competition they faced wasn’t worth bragging about but once again, a win is a win. But, if you are really interested in talking about the competition they faced, they were still only shutout once during that stretch and it was against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Knights were able to tally wins against the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Anaheim Ducks, Ottawa Senators, and the Montreal Canadiens.
Now some of those teams don’t hold a lot of value in the league, but some do. The Avalanche are a very solid team in the league and don’t really have a ton of weaknesses when trying to game-plan against them. Yet, the Vegas Golden Knights were able to hold them to just one goal on the game. Then, you look at the next game against the Dallas Stars.
The Dallas Stars are currently 4-5-2 on the season, but everyone knows that the Dallas Stars have a good team that is simply not producing wins. With a lot of young stars and a couple very good veterans, they have everything they need to win. It’s as simple as there is a disconnect in that organization and when things get clicking they will be a dangerous team.
When it comes to looking at the other three teams that the Vegas Golden Knights were able to secure wins from, haven’t exactly put their best foot forward to start the season. Doesn’t mean they aren’t a talented team, but they just haven’t performed to their capability and they are still young and developing.
The good news is that regardless of those bad team’s that they played against, they were able to not just get wins, but blow them out. Being able to go out there and truly show up and perform like they did, it’s exactly what you would expect from the Vegas Golden Knights offense, and defense.
It may be too early to call it a turn-around, but it’s not too early to start having hope that the Vegas Golden Knights could truly start to make something of this season once again.