Winning changed everything.
That’s the saying I come back to every time someone asks about the Vegas Golden Knights.
How did an expansion team become one of the standard-bearers in roster construction? How did it become the model for how teams operate and try to win by any means necessary?
How did this team even get into this position to begin with, now about to play in its third Stanley Cup Final in nine years Tuesday against the Carolina Hurricanes?
Because winning changed everything.
The Knights entered the league as ’80s Hulk Hogan. Red and yellow, eat your vitamins, say your prayers. The lovable good guy. Only those with deep-rooted hatred for expansion teams wanted the Knights to lose in the inaugural season.
Then they kept winning. And winning. And won some more.
All babyfaces in wrestling grow stale. The crowd gets tired of them. But when that change finally happens, and the lovable good guy finally leans into going after the crowd, the industry changes for the better.
Back where it started
It always goes back to 2018. It always comes back to a team that had no business being good from the get-go. The team of Misfits that grew together through unthinkable tragedy and turned their inaugural season into the most magical run.
The trip to the Stanley Cup Final did everything imaginable that it could for an expansion team. It provided notoriety. It gave the Knights a seat at the table much sooner than teams that came before them.
But it sped up the timeline faster than they could’ve imagined.
Stanley Cup Final in Year 1? Fantastic. What do they do for an encore? Because they didn’t win that year. The name of the game is to be the last team to hoist the Stanley Cup. Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals had a celebration in the Bellagio fountains to prove it.
“When Year 1 went like it did, it changed the calculus a little bit for the organization, and we’ve been trying to win ever since,” general manager Kelly McCrimmon said.
The Knights were supposed to take the long approach, no matter Bill Foley’s “Cup in Six” proclamation. The triplets of their first entry draft — Cody Glass, Nick Suzuki and Erik Brannstrom — were supposed to be cornerstones for years to come.
Winning changed everything.
Suzuki was traded to Montreal for Max Pacioretty before Year 2 began.
Brannstrom was gone five months later, sending the defenseman to Ottawa.
Enter Mark Stone, who didn’t wait to put pen to paper on an eight-year extension with full belief in this 2-year-old franchise.
“I think it takes bold decisions, but maybe more importantly, it takes good decisions because it’s easy to trade draft picks away if you don’t convert those to really serviceable players on your team,” McCrimmon said.
On the doorstep
Two more trips to the playoffs later, including another trip to the Western Conference Final, the Knights couldn’t stop. They needed a true No. 1 defenseman to fortify their blue line.
Enter Alex Pietrangelo.
Five months after their shocking six-game loss to Montreal in the third round, the Knights were at it again. They had the core. They had the captain. They had the defenseman.
Risk attached, enter Jack Eichel, in need of a neck surgery that had never been done on an NHL player.
An organization not short on taking big swings took its biggest one. Safe to say it’s been a home run. Eichel has a championship, and he’s the richest player in franchise history.
Winning changed everything. So did losing.
The Knights missing the playoffs in 2022 was supposed to be the beginning of the downfall.
Instead, the Knights kept winning. And it turned into hoisting the Stanley Cup in 2023.
Not much has changed
The core has changed slightly, with Pietrangelo now on long-term injured reserve and his career likely over. Eichel and Stone remain the heads of the snake. They’re partly why the Knights are four wins away from a second title in four years.
Added to that conglomerate now is Mitch Marner, shedding the labels of playoff past and putting himself in the Conn Smythe Trophy discussion.
The additions of Noah Hanifin and Tomas Hertl in 2024. The trade for Rasmus Andersson this year. Even adding Ivan Barbashev during the 2023 run that cost a former first-round pick in Zach Dean.
The Knights have leaned into doing everything they can to not only build off that first year, but somehow find ways to topple it and being in constant win-now mode. Much like the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers have done.
“It’s really a break from what the norm has been for a long time,” McCrimmon said. “I always feel you manage the team in front of you organizationally.”
There are still the last remaining Misfits that are trying to put a stamp on that legacy. They’re the ones that will last forever if they earn another championship.
“It feels like yesterday it was the first year we were all doing this,” defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “It’s been an awesome ride. Very fortunate that I’ve been here through this long and have another opportunity to try and win one.”
All for this moment to get back to the reason why Year 1 was so important.
The Knights leaned into their equivalent of Hogan turning heel at Bash At the Beach in 1996. They are the New World Order of the NHL. They have been, really, since the year they missed the playoffs.
Everyone wants them to fail. Everyone wants them to lose. No one wants to see the heel win, unless you cheer for evil.
Winning changed everything, including the Knights’ approach.
No one likes a consistent winner. They want the new blood to reign supreme. It’s not surprising that Carolina is the heavy rooting favorite among the hockey world.
No one wants to see the heel win, but they never go away. The Knights are deep into theirs and are four wins away from laughing at everyone again.
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
Up next
Who: Golden Knights at Hurricanes
What: Game 1, Stanley Cup Final
When: 5 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Lenovo Center, Raleigh, North Carolina
TV: ABC
Radio: KFLG 94.7 FM/KKGK 1340 AM
Line: Hurricanes -150; total 5½
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Stanley Cup Final schedule
Game 1: Tuesday, 5 p.m. at Lenovo Center (ABC)
Game 2: Thursday, 5 p.m. at Lenovo Center (ABC)
Game 3: June 6, 5 p.m. at T-Mobile Arena (ABC)
Game 4: June 9, 5 p.m. at T-Mobile Arena (ABC)
*Game 5: June 11, 5 p.m. at Lenovo Center (ABC)
*Game 6: June 14, 5 p.m. at T-Mobile Arena (ABC)
*Game 7: June 17, 5 p.m. at Lenovo Center (ABC)
*if necessary
