Should Golden Knights fans be panicking yet? The case for and against

Needless to say, the last few weeks haven't been kind to the Vegas Golden Knights. In nine games since the end of an incredible eastern road trip, Vegas has posted a 1-5-3 record, with the sole victory being a 7-2 beatdown of the Sharks.

Between poor goaltending, blown leads, unreliable defense, and many other factors, the Golden Knights have looked mediocre at best and outright awful at worst, with some even questioning Bruce Cassidy's job security. At what amounts to a 17-23 overall record, is it truly time for Vegas fans to panic, or is this just an early start to the annual and expected January slump? Let's take a look.

There's more than a few reasons to hit the panic button

I'm not the first nor the last one to say that this team looks bad right now. Chief among reasons to lose our minds has been Vegas's inability to hold a lead; the team's blown leads in four of its last five games, including two-goal leads against Colorado and Nashville.

Similarly, they've been absurdly anti-clutch late in games, as Colorado's game-tying goal and St. Louis' game-winning goal came with less than two minutes to go in the game, only shortly after Vegas had respectively taken the lead and tied those games. Bad defensive play has been heavily to blame, with turnovers abound in virtually all nine of the aforementioned games.

All of that said, the elephant in the room has been goaltending. As it stands, Carter Hart has the ninth-worst goals saved above expected in the entire NHL, at -7.7. His three most recent games in particular have been nothing less than horrific, as he's allowed 14 goals on 70 shots over that span for a .771 save percentage. Yikes!

Akira Schmid has been only mildly better, as his save percentage stands at .820 in two starts over the same stretch. While Adin Hill might be back soon-ish after traveling to Chicago with the team, it's a risky bet that he'll be the magic band-aid this team needs. All in all, Vegas has arguably one of the worst tandems in hockey right now, and that's an anchor on the season barring a miracle turnaround.

But wait! It's not all bad news - there's some reasons for calm

First off, take a look at the Pacific Division standings. Yep, somehow that's these Golden Knights at the top. To put it bluntly, the Pacific absolutely stinks right now; every single team has a negative goal differential, every team has an overall winning percentage at or under .500, and all but three teams have a losing record in their last 10 games.

With that in mind, VGK aren't alone, and more importantly, aren't really losing any ground; fellow division leaders Edmonton and Anaheim have been equally as bad lately. At the end of the day, someone has to fill out the top-3 for the playoffs, so the fears of missing entirely might be unfounded for the moment, and once you're in, anything can happen. With the division as it is, there's plenty of time to right the ship.

Even better, and in part due to that division, is this little factoid:

As of Christmas, the Golden Knights had the weakest remaining schedule in the entire league. Now, that's no guarantee of wins or points, but it certainly bodes well in the long term. Most of the games against the league's titans are behind us, giving Vegas an ample opportunity to figure it out against the weaker end of the NHL. Then again, that's also what I thought before we lost to St. Louis and Chicago, so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

Overall, there's a lot of reasons for pessimism and some weaker ones for optimism. I, for one, am pretty down on this team as a cup contender, but I think we're a safe bet for playoffs. With 42 games remaining as of today, let's hope Sunday was the lowest point of the season.