2026 Season Preview: Vegas Golden Knights
Runners up for the 2026 Stanley Cup, is the Vegas machine starting to run out of steam?
In their eight year history, the Vegas Golden Knights have only missed the playoffs once. They’ve been to the Stanley Cup Final three times, won it all once, and have proven time and time again that winning is their only objective. After falling just short of another championship to the Carolina Hurricanes, you have to wonder if their plans will change at all moving forward.
2025-26 Outcome
Regular Season Results: 39-26-17
Postseason Results: Defeated Utah 4-2, Defeated Anaheim 4-2, Defeated Colorado 4-0, Lost to Carolina 4-2
Vegas had a fine regular season and was able to secure first place in the Pacific Division with a total of 95 points. Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner led the way for this team with a combined 170 points (90 and 80, respectively), Mark Stone still managed to contribute 73 points despite only playing in 60 games, and the team as a whole was strong enough to make up for the fact that they could not get consistent goaltending out of any of the four netminders who took the crease this season.
Who’s In and Who’s Out
I truly don’t see there being any debate here: The Golden Knights got much worse this summer. They had to do what they had to do for salary cap reasons, but there’s just not a world that exists where you get rid of Pavel Dorofeyev and Colton Sissons, replace them with Victor Olofsson and Marc Gatcomb, and expect to be better. That's not to mention that they traded away Keegan Kolesar and really didn’t bring back any in the way of substantial depth forwards whatsoever.
On defense, they traded Kaeden Korczak and brought in Parker Wotherspoon. I suppose given what we can expect from their roster construction, Wotherspoon is of more use to them than Korczak is right now, but still. This team did not do anything to improve and is going to be counting on a surplus of aging veterans to get them back to the dance next spring.
