It was exactly 1,944 days since Las Vegas was awarded an NHL franchise. They’ve been named the Vegas Golden Knights for 1,824 of them. The team played their first game 1,473 days ago and they’ve been actively competing inside of a regular season for 652 days.
Today stands as just the 95th day in which the Golden Knights have been on the outside of the playoff picture. These past few days have represented just the 27th, 28th, and 29th days in which VGK have ever sat in 7th place, and if the Flames win in Anaheim tonight it’ll be just the 3rd day in 1,944 days of existence that the Golden Knights will be in dead last in the division.
| 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2021 | 2021-22 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | 184* | 125* | 131* | 121* | 3 |
| No | 0 | 60 | 31 | 0 | 4 |
| 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2021 | 2021-22 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 122* | 0 | 29* | 85 | 1 |
| 2nd | 60 | 11 | 18 | 29* | 1 |
| 3rd | 1 | 100* | 29 | 2 | |
| 4th | 1 | 22 | 48 | 5 | |
| 5th | 0 | 10 | 34 | 0 | 1 |
| 6th | 0 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| 7th | 0 | 25 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 8th | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
The numbers are quite astounding when you considered the historic success, or really, failures, of previous NHL expansion teams. Not only have the Golden Knights reached the playoffs every season, they’ve been on the correct side of the playoff cut line for 85.5% of their days in the NHL.
Maybe even more impressive, the Golden Knights have held down the #1 spot in the Pacific or West division for 36% of the 657 regular season days. No other spot accounts for more than 20% and 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th places combine for just 14.4% of the days.
Yes, that’s right, that means the Golden Knights have been in 1st place more than twice the amount of time they’ve been anywhere in the bottom half of the division.
The latest the Golden Knights have ever been out of the postseason picture was on January 17th, 2020, one day after firing Gerard Gallant (they were in 1st place 11 days earlier).
And Friday was the first day of the first 178 regular season days coached by Pete DeBoer.
The Golden Knights aren’t back in action until Wednesday, which means they’ll have to suffer through at least two more days in an unfamiliar position.
Richard Santomauro
Really? One game into the season Ken?
Maybe spend some more time thinking about putting out something more relevant. This article might be better if we were 20 games into the season.
Not now.
Although, if Stone & Patches remain out, my prediction that the Kings will win the division are even more solid. If they are out for any significant amount of time, VGK might not even make the playoffs.
Blitz
Man, you took a shit all over that. It’s just a filler article. Don’t read it if it bothers you this much. Go elsewhere where you can read other filler articles that are just regurge’s of the last Deboer presser. At least some thought went into this.
Kathleen Swanson
Yikes….scary & very sad thought!!!
Saad Khan Imran
It’s just 2 games it’s not scary.
Sherm
Dude you and so many others are taking a tongue-in-cheek article way too seriously. It’s literally just to throw out interesting statistics and boast how successful this franchise really is.
One might even call it a filler article. Everybody breathe, it’s all gonna be okay.
Jason Mason
Wow, time to move back to Atlanta and renew my Thrasher season tickets.
Blitz
Sinbin twitter:
Here are the lines they are running at practice
Dadonov-Stephenson-Howden
Marchessault-Karlsson-Smith
Carrier-Patrick-Kolesar
*Roy (no-contact jersey)
Some messed up lines. I am hoping just cause people are still missing.
After a couple of game for HSK. Dorofeyev, Krebs, and Bartschi all seem to be scoring some points. Doro has 3 goals, Krebs 5 assists, Bartschi 1 goal and 2 assists.
I think Dadonov-Stephenson-Dorofeyev on a L2 seems interesting. The Russian Sandwich! The Doro kids has some real skills. His shoot out goal was excellent. We had a serious lack of scoring, AND THEN our best scorers got hurt. Ugh! Now we have a bunch of granite hand dudes ready to play, coming back from injury. It would be nice to put our best non-misfit scorers together. Stephenson’s speed/defense might help them from getting smoked on defense.
Bartschi has several years of real NHL experience along with some skill. It might be good to have some of that with people out.
I hope the line of Carrier-Patrick-Kolesar is just a practice line (ref sinbin twitter). Nothing says lack of scoring like this line does.
I am pretty horrified where we are 2 games into this season. I really hope something good comes from losing your top line. Maybe another line develops or a couple of players step up their game. To be honest I don’t see it from Howden, Carrier, or even Kolesar (who looks better this year). This team needs scoring. Roy would be my veteran roster player who I would say needs to step up, but he is still nursing an injury. So Patrick, Krebs, or a HSK guys need to fill the scoring void. I think that is where we are and of course misfits need to step up, but we can’t lean on them 47 minutes a night.
Vic
A Jim Mora once said…Playoffs? Anyway, the Eichel price is way too high. Nick Hague is 22, and in case you haven’t noticed, he is skating and playing better each game. As for Krebs….would be nice to see a fair shot this year instead of evaluating him on a few NHL games and burial on 3rd and 4th lines. He’s 20 years old and Buffalo knows there is huge potential. The older folks here remember Adam Oates. My wish is for Krebs to become 3/4s of the player Oates was….HOF, 1,079 assists and 1,420 points. Krebs needs to add 10 pounds. Oates had a quiet first year with Detroit at age 23 and teams that traded him regretted it. He was the definition of high hockey IQ and a frequent Byng finalist. Peyton….watch the films and play like him. Not asking too much…ha ha.
eric
Just writers block or what? What a true waste of space
Ken Boehlke
Just trying to show how great the Golden Knights have been.
Sherm
Don’t worry, some of us caught that.
eric
a obviously still are. Im just a little worried about the grit of this current group.
THE hockey GOD
nice piece of luck from the scheduling God to give the VGK some time to lick their wounds and get some players back into the line up.
It’s a long season, the weather is turning cold, the ice is getting slick. I expect good things will come as we pass the ides of October and into the blustery winter season..
Winter is coming.
Tim
The reality is Patch has been out off and on while he’s been with the Knights and Stone if his stomach muscles are torn they’ll both be out for months add Tuch to that and we have a hill to climb. Unlike most of you I was never that interested in the Stanley Cup because it’s hard to be the last team standing. I’m fine with giving the young players a chance but I don’t believe they will.
Tim
Think the unimaginable Edmonton, LA, and Vancouver in what ever order you like finish 1,2,3 in the Pacific division. All three of those teams have improved and it wouldn’t be shocking if we were odd team out.
Robert F
Nice article – it shows we we know in our gut after just two games. When you get rid of MAF, Nosek, and Reeves there is a cost to all these changes; less heart, less drive, and giving up 6 goals straight for the first time in club history.
If all GM McGrimmon is going to do is recycle guys from the Brandon Wheat Kings time to rename the franchise from VGK to Vegas Golden Wheat Kings
Kimberly Jensen
Couldn’t agree more!
Vlad
A little soon to head for the cliff!
Having said that it’s been a slow bleed ever since mcrimmon was given the reins. He’s swapped the teams culture for backstabbing and mistrust. Gallant and fleury for example. Play off performance last year.
Mcrimmon came from the whl where intimidation of kids, backstabbing and bullying are common place. Now that culture has been brought to Vegas with him. He has completely gutted the original group and how’s that worked out?
And for those that think krebs is going to be the saviour… laughable
A league leading minus player in the whl. Take away pp points and his plus minus is off the charts bad. First HSK vs COL game. He was on the ice for every single COL goal. Also, the majority of his points are 2nd assists. Not goals and not primary assists. How many shots has he had to date in preseason and regular season games? Barely any. The best one was off his face. In the world juniors he looked like a stick boy compared to Tim Stutzle, Cole Caufield, Perfetti, etc. Other than mcrimmons crush on krebs there is nothing there. Had Vegas not taken him 17th he would have been a late 2nd or early 3rd rounder. If Vegas thinks this is the player that will save or even remotely help them it’s big trouble in the desert.
Vick Leach
The VGK will have to score at least 4 or 5 goals a game to end up on the plus side of a lackluster goalie tandem. Unfortunately, I do not think that’s possible with this skeleton crew.