Elimination Eval: Vegas Golden Knights

For the second year in a row, the Vegas Golden Knights were eliminated from playoff contention far earlier than many expected. Just two seasons removed from their first Stanley Cup Championship, and just six seasons into their existence, the Golden Knights want to remain competitive, but have only won a single playoff series in those two years. While they made progress in comparison to last season, there's plenty of reason to believe that Vegas has greater expectations for their team.

Expectations

Vegas set the bar extremely high for themselves when they made it to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season, and then went all the way and hoisted the Stanley Cup just a few seasons later in 2023. While they’re still a young franchise, they’ve established that winning is both the culture they want to build around and, as such, the expectation, year in and year out. This season was no different as Vegas looked to bounce back after losing to Dallas in the first round of the playoffs last season.

They didn’t do a ton of business on the open market this summer aside from signing Victor Olofsson and Tanner Pearson. Most of their business centered around getting their guys signed to extensions. This included locking Shea Theodore up for seven years, Brayden McNabb for three more years, Brett Howden for five more years, Keegan Kolesar for three more years, and, eventually, Adin Hill for six more years. They also went on to sign Brandon Saad, who has won multiple Cups with Chicago, to a one year deal after the St. Louis Blues terminated his contract mid-season. 

Even on the trade front they were a bit quieter than usual, making a trade with the New Jersey Devils to acquire Alexander Holtz and Akira Schmid, and then the deal with the Rangers to bring back Reilly Smith. Perhaps this had more to do with the trade market than anything else, but given how their postseason went, you have to wonder if they should have done more. 

Playoff Recap

Vegas met the Minnesota Wild for the first time in the postseason in the opening round of the playoffs. While Vegas went into it as the pretty clear favorites, the Wild were looking to give them a run for their money. And sure enough, they did by taking them to six games. You can get more of an in depth breakdown of that round one match-up on my Elimination Eval for Minnesota, but Vegas took game one, lost the next two games to fall behind in the series before winning out to dispatch Minnesota, four games to two. Former friend Brett Howden was a key part of Vegas’ success as they also got some big offensive contributions from their back end with plenty of their usual suspects also contributing. 

This included Mark Stone, who led the way for Vegas in game one of the second round as he picked up a power play goal just two minutes into play to give his team the lead. Seven minutes later, he picked up another goal, this time at even strength, to extend their lead to 2-0. That would do it, however, for the Golden Knights offense as Calvin Pickard shut the door the rest of the way. Four unanswered goals from the Oilers helped them take game one. Not only was this alarming for Vegas, but this was Edmonton’s fifth consecutive come-from-behind win in the postseason so far.

Vegas’ power play continued to thrive in game two as Victor Olofsson converted on the man advantage to give them a 1-0 lead. Once again, Edmonton’s offense came in bunches as they found the back of the net three times over seven minutes of play in the second period to take a 3-1 lead. William Karlsson was able to bring Vegas back within one before the end of the second period. An Evander Kane goal put the Oilers back up by two early in the third period, but Victor Olofsson's second goal of the game cut the deficit to one before Alex Pietrangelo tied the game up with just over eight minutes to play. This was a crucial moment in the series that became a a game changing moment for Vegas as Leon Draisaitl scored the game winning overtime goal 15 minutes into the extra period to give Edmonton a big 2-0 lead in the series. 

Game three would become the high moment for Vegas as they picked up their first win of the series in dramatic fashion. After Edmonton took a 2-0 lead thanks to a pair of goals from Corey Perry halfway through the first, Vegas tied it up with goals from Nicolas Roy and former friend Reilly Smith. The score remained tied at two through most the second period before William Karlsson gave the Golden Knights the lead with just a couple of minutes left. Connor McDavid would score late to tie game three at three, but a goal in the final second of the game from Reilly Smith gave Vegas an important win to bring them within one in the series. 

Both game four and game give would become low points for Vegas seeing as the Oilers held them without a goal for six full periods of hockey. In game five, Adam Henrique put the Oilers on the board just 87 seconds into the game, and then picked up his second goal of the night with about seven minutes to go in the period. A goal from Evander Kane made it a 3-0 game early on in the third period. Stuart Skinner, who had replaced Calvin Pickard in net for the Oilers after an injury in game two, picked up a 23 save shutout. Both Skiller and Adin Hill were perfect through regulation, as game five went to overtime in a scoreless tie. Edmonton would clinch the series as Kasperi Kapanen scored at 7:19 of the first overtime, taking the series four games to one. 

Prediction 

I made a bold prediction taking Minnesota in the first round, so I didn’t see the Golden Knights making it past the opening round. In that sense, they exceeded my expectations, but not by much seeing as they only won one game in the second round. 

Was the Season a Success? 

In Vegas’s eyes, this season was surely a bit of an underachievement in that they want to remain contenders every year. However, they did make some progress compared to last season, and ran into a team in the Oilers who were one game away from a Stanley Cup last year, and that has as good a chance as any of the four teams left in the race to go the distance. With that in mind, I’d certainly say this season was somewhere in between a success and failure. Their underwhelming off-season and trade deadline, mixed with their history of making big, splashy moves could be indication in itself that they will be more aggressive in making more progress next season. But, all things considered, the feeling surrounding this team seems to be they fell far too short of their ultimate goal. 

UFA’s/RFA’s

Vegas will undoubtedly be one of the busier team’s in the week between the draft and free agency as they have a total of ten pending free agents. For RFA’s they have Alexander Holtz, Cole Schwindt, Raphael Lavoie, and, most notably, defenseman Nic Hague. I’d say the most likely scenario is all four of those players are back with Vegas next season, although I’d love for the Rangers to make a move for Nic Hague. With the conversation surrounding offer sheets heating up this year, you have to wonder if Hague could be an offer sheet candidate as he’s someone a team with available cap space and the corresponding draft capital to tender an offer sheet could have high interest in. Looking at their back end, Vegas could go on without Hague but would obviously rather hold onto him. 

For UFA’s, Reilly Smith, Brandon Saad, Victor Olofsson, Tanner Pearson, Jonas Ronderg, Ilya Samsonov are all set to hit the open market. They’ll be fine without Samsonov as they have Akira Schmid who can back up Adin Hill, but losing all those wingers definitely takes a chunk out of their winger depth. None of them are overly significant losses that will leave Vegas in a bad spot, but it will require some restocking of the cupboards. Olofsson seemed to fit in well in Vegas, so perhaps they can get him signed to a reasonable extension. Reilly Smith also seems to have a ton of interest in finishing out his career in Vegas, so perhaps signing him to an extension makes sense for both parties. It all depends on what Vegas is looking to accomplish this offseason.  

Biggest Question Moving Forward

Vegas doesn't have any overly pressing concerns but I’d say the biggest question is what big swing will they take next? This is a team that typically never shies away from a big trade or free agent signing, and after back-to-back shortened playoff runs, you have to wonder which direction they take for the future of this team. They’ll surely want to come back stronger next season and simply running it back with what they have isn’t going to be the answer for that.

Beyond that, there are some additional question marks surrounding different areas of this team. One of those centers around their aging captain in Mark Stone. It’s almost become tradition for him to pick up some injury that leaves him on LTIR for a huge chunk of the regular season only to join the team just in time for a playoff run. This time, it was a bit of the opposite scenario where he was fine at the start but picked up an injury and did not play at all in game five. Stone will turn 34 next spring, which is arguably even older when you consider the style of hockey he plays and all the wear and tear he’s gathered throughout all his injuries over the years. It’s fair to assume that his stock value is only going to decrease throughout the last two years of his contract. Could Vegas explore options to get out of that deal sooner rather than later? He has full trade protection so it would ultimately be up to him to consent to a trade, but we know how cut-throat Vegas can be. I wouldn’t put moving on from their captain past them. 

There’s also the Jack Eichel free agency cloud that looms over this franchise, and the question of whether or not he will sign an extension to spend the rest of his career there. He enters the final year of his contract next season and could be the next captain of this team if he decides to sign a long term extension. All the more reason for Vegas to consider finding a way out from Mark Stone. While Rangers fans are certainly hoping Eichel becomes a UFA next year, it’s sounding more and more unlikely, as Elliotte Friedman pointed out on the 32 Thoughts Podcast that he doesn't see Eichel playing anywhere else. 

Also, while I don’t see it being in the player’s best interest, but you have to wonder if Vegas would be interested in trying their luck at the Mitch Marner sweepstakes. They would surely need to find a way out of the Stone deal to make that happen, likely without any salary retention, in order to pull that off. But it’s Vegas we're talking about here, so you’re telling me they’re not going to see what they can do to target the biggest free agent in recent memory.

Projected Lineup

Barbashev - Eichel - Stone 
Dorofeyev - Hertl - Roy
Howden - Karlsson - Holtz*
? - Schwindt* - Kolesar 

McNabb - Theodore
Hanifin - Pietrangelo 
Hague* - Whitecloud
Hutton - Korczak 

Hill - Schmidt

(*-RFAs)

Final Thoughts

Looking at that projected lineup it’s hard not to assume this team would be fine to run it back and return to the postseason next year. The question is, is that good enough to be able to compete with Edmonton, Dallas, Colorado, and whoever else might have a hot year next season? The whole winning culture mindset can’t be overstated either, as Vegas is always going to want to do what they can to win. They’ve done a good job this season in solidifying their roster for the foreseeable future, but there’s definitely room for a couple of notable improvements. How they manage to make those changes with limited cap space and a demanding market remains to be seen.