It’s been quite a while since our last Guest Post, so we’re heading back to the well, this time from our friend whose Twitter profile reads, “my loyalties lie with Pittsburgh, but my heart lies in Vegas.” 

We’ll have to work on the whole loyalties thing, but that’s for another day. As for now, Laura believes many in the media, including here on SinBin.vegas, are underselling the Golden Knights chances on the ice in their inaugural season. So here it is, our latest guest post from Laura Weibe.

Let’s clear a few things up right away, this team, in my opinion, won’t make the playoffs this year, they won’t turn heads and put up some miraculous 50 win season. That is still a few years away, but before you talk about being a first-year expansion franchise that is comparable to Atlanta (39 points) in 1999, I will try and give a glimmer of hope to the Golden Knights first season on the ice.

Forwards

The team on the ice might not resemble the likes of the past few Cup champs, but there are some good players that are proven NHLers on the roster. Let’s break down how the team might look, come opening night. On forward expect something like this;

Jonathan Marchessault – Vadim Shipachyov – James Neal

David Perron – Cody Eakin – Reilly Smith

Erik Haula – William Karlsson – Oscar Lindberg

Brendan Leipsic – P.E. Bellemare – Teemu Pulkkinen

Marchessault had 51 points last year, including 30 goals. Neal had 41 points, including 23 goals. Shipachyov, in the KHL had 76 points, including 26 goals. That’s a first line that accumulated 168 points. Now, KHL numbers don’t prove much at the NHL level but that is all there is to go on.

In comparison, the Penguins first line combined for 175. Before we get ahead of ourselves, no the Penguins first line and Vegas’s first line are not comparable and KHL points are very hard to transfer, but those are the numbers.

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Usually for people in Alabama, Saturday’s are for football. But once football season wraps up, our friends from Forest Gump’s home state usually go into a deep dark depression. That’s not the case for our next Guest Post author who decided months ago that he was ready to jump aboard the VGK bandwagon. 

This Guest Post comes from Cameron Cole, and like The Creator, he’s not thrilled about the Raiders coming to Vegas.

I have always loved the idea of being a fan of a team from Day 1. Every day I would Google “expansion team” or “relocation team” and read all the rumors and such. But I also wanted the team to be the right fit. I live in Birmingham, Alabama, which probably causes most of you to automatically think football. Yes, that is our state’s main attraction as we have 2 teams who play in the best conference in the NCAA (just let me have this for now, we can debate it another time). We also have a minor league baseball team the Birmingham Barons. In April 2016 I googled NHL expansion and SinBin.vegas came up. It was one of their amazing podcasts (which if you have never listened to you need to start ASAP) in which they talked about how Vegas was getting a team and Quebec City was not. I knew that there wasn’t a major pro sports team in Vegas then so I decided to do some research about the history of pro sports in Vegas.

I found that Vegas and Birmingham have almost identical histories in the sporting world. Birmingham has had an XFL team, a CFL team, and an Arena football team. Vegas has had an XFL team, a CFL team, and an AFL team too! So I was like I was looking at Birmingham in the sports world! Then it happened, the NHL was officially expanding to Vegas, so I instantly became a fan of the Las Vegas NHL team (which we know now as the Vegas Golden Knights). It was the perfect fit. Over the next few months I learned hockey and have watched a lot more of the Predators and read every SinBin article they put out…Then the raiders talk came.

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Time for another Guest Post. Today’s submission comes all the way from the other side of the country in this magical place called New Jersey. Our guy Chris was able to track down former Rangers and Panthers goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck and ask some questions about expansion, Vegas, and more. Written by Chris Rauch.

“They are set up to have a lot of success.”

Let’s face it: when expansion teams get off the ground they are usually abysmal. The Washington Capitals won 8 games their first year in the league. It took the Columbus Blue Jackets nearly 10 years to make the playoffs for the first time. One exception to the futility rule are the Florida Panthers. It took only three years for the team to reach the Stanley Cup finals – thanks, in part, to the first player chosen in the 1993 expansion draft: goaltender John “The Beezer” Vanbiesbrouck.

The days of terrible expansion teams may be in the rear view mirror thanks to the new NHL draft rules which will give the Golden Knights access to the best talent pool an expansion team has ever seen. General manager George McPhee will have a lot on his plate, and Vanbiesbrouck is confident that the team is in good hands with McPhee at the helm.

Vanbiesbrouck and McPhee have also known each other for a long time. The two played for the New York Rangers back in the ‘80s. Currently, Vanbiesbrouck is the General Manager for the United States Hockey League’s (USHL) Muskegon Lumberjacks, a top Tier 1 junior team in Western Michigan.

“Look at the job he’s done with the Capitals,” says Vanbiesbrouck, “That still lives on with that team right now. I just believe that George and his crew…are set up to have a lot of success. His Director of Scouting [Scott Luce] is one of the best in the game. I’ve known him for a long time and he’s great at finding great talent.”

Drafting in a salary cap era may be tricky, but “The Beezer” feels there will be enough talent to go around when the draft gets underway in June – especially for goaltenders. “They are probably going to start with a goalie. If a guy like (Marc-Andre) Fleury is available with Stanley Cup winning experience and a lot of gas still in the tank it will be hard to look past him.”

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One of my favorite things about running SinBin.vegas is the incredible passion that turns into Guest Posts from you guys who read the site every day. It’s been far too long since our last one, which was a doozy by the way, so what better time than now to hear from another member of the ever growing SinBin.vegas army (We still need a good name for this).

This one is from Robert Price (aka Slack).

As a Red Wings fan growing up in Michigan, I can remember watching them play the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in their inaugural season on TV and their arena public address announcing “Offsides”. I can also remember laughing about it out loud with my friends before LOL even existed.

Fast forward 22 years or so and we are about to embark on our first NHL season here in Las Vegas where I have called home since 2000. I am older, wiser and became a bit more jaded with every lockout, strike, work stoppage or whatever you want to call it, but there is one thing for certain. I want the Vegas Golden Knights to succeed.

For those of you who already know, hockey is the greatest sport in the world, for those that don’t but want to, you are about to find out. Toughest athletes that give back to the community, best live action games, crazy playoffs and, of course, the ultimate trophy. I’m trading in my red and white to watch this franchise grow with my son who now has a team to call his own, and it’s going to be a great ride.

Getting back to my original point. Credibility. It is earned, not given. Traditionalists and a few neighbors in the country to the north are watching. And when I say “watching”, I mean that are looking for a laugh and/or clamoring for a reason to move the Knights to Moose Jaw so they can have eight teams instead of seven that won’t win a Cup. (I’m sorry, was that out loud? I jest) My point is this. A lot of things go into making this a successful franchise for the long haul, some of which we as fans control and some we can’t, but we do have a voice. I feel the sooner these things happen, the sooner the critics will be quiet. Without further ado, here are six factors in making the Vegas Golden Knights one for the ages.

Number One: On Ice Success

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On a day in which the team selected a superfan to send to the All Star Game, we thought it might be nice to hear one of the most passionate fans of SinBin.vegas. Unfortunately for Jerry we don’t have All Star tickets in a luxury box, so I guess seeing his name as the author of a website that draws 1.5 million fans a day will have to suffice as a consolation prize.

It’s the pledge of allegiance, VGK style, from Jerry “Phi Sig 150” Tomeo.

There’s been a tide of excitement slowly building for almost two years. First there were murmurs, then rumblings, then rampant rumors which were followed by full scale speculation until the glorious day finally arrived when it was officially announced that yes, what we had been hearing was true, Las Vegas was indeed getting it’s first pro sports team. Die-hard hockey fans rejoiced. Locals swelled with pride over the giant step our burgeoning city was taking. The Internet and Las Vegas locals alike played the name the team game for months fueled with occasional teases from Foley. Deep down in our hearts we knew he wasn’t lying when he said that Knights would be incorporated in some fashion but what if it was an elaborate ruse to throw all of us off the scent? What if he’s actually planning on playing a wild card? What if he’s naming the team the Rat Pack? Or better yet what if he’s going with a name that was actually good? Then the name came out. I’m sure somewhere out there must be a small group of Renaissance faire performers that flipped their medieval lids over the name. Most locals were indifferent, content with the prospect of hockey and pro sports in Las Vegas. There was, however, a very vocal group that hated the name. I mean really, really hated the name with a level of loathing usually reserved for Isis or Bettman. I’m not going to rehash the arguments pro and con Vegas Golden Knights for the thousandth time but suffice to say a Golden opportunity was Las.

There exists a significant segment of our fan base that feels disenfranchised. They want to be like the rest of us snapping up shirts, hats, and especially those sweet, sweet lanyards. The disenfranchised long to get lost in the excitement but for some reason they just can’t. Some of these fans helped get the team here in the first place by committing to season tickets. Some still intend to buy tickets once the puck hits the ice. There are unfortunately a few that have completely written the team off over the naming process. The disenfranchised feel the name isn’t representative of the city they love and feel slighted that they weren’t included in the naming process. Despite some of our ultimately fruitless fantasies the name isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. So the question becomes how do we get these fans back into the fold? The solution: the creation of an identifiable fan collective.

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The next SinBin.vegas Guest Post comes to us all the way from New Orleans. Like many around the country, our next writer was waiting for an opportunity to love the best sport on Earth, and the Golden Knights are here to give him that opportunity.

So here it is, the New Years Resolution from Chris Trew.

Hockey fans and Las Vegas residents don’t know me and should have no reason to care about my 2017 New Year’s resolution. But I resolve to be as big of a Golden Knights fan as geography and my time allows.

Quick, context-providing, background: I’m a season ticket holder for the New Orleans Pelicans where I sit behind the visitors bench and write about it for Uproxx. Our AAA minor league baseball team recently rebranded from the Zephyrs to the Baby Cakes and I wrote this piece documenting my approval and that led to me now with a position on the franchise’s advisory council. I love sports and I’m fascinated with expansions and rebrands. I’m obsessed with fan loyalty and without a real reason to get behind an NHL team, I never have. Until now.

I was in Las Vegas for my annual Thanksgiving weekend trip in November of 2015 with a couple of units left in my sportsbook budget on the final night of my stay. Since I had discovered the possibility of the NHL landing in Las Vegas I couldn’t consume newspaper articles, blog posts, and podcasts quickly enough. The ticket drive was in full force and my heart told me to avoid investing the rest of my budget and to put it into a ticket. So, I did. For my last night in your city, I ate a leftover granola bar for dinner and watched Netflix instead of having steak and gambling. But I was now a proud partial season ticket holder for an NHL franchise that didn’t exist.

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