s23 - Vegas finally wins a round [WB12]

Vegas, NV - A playoff win for the Vegas Golden Knights in this economy? Blasphemy I tell you.

Vegas finally scampered back to the second round for just the second time since David Zammit took over the General Managers role back in the 2005-06 season. The only other time the team made it to the second round was in the 2008-09 playoffs where they ran into, guess who…. The Phoenix Coyotes who dispatched Vegas in six games. 

Fast forward four playoffs and we have ourselves a rematch with Vegas the underdogs again against the league-leading Coyotes.

Why is there hope for the Golden Knights this time around? Good question given how good the Coyotes are offensively (third in goals for) and defensively (best in goals against). One thing Vegas could hang with them on is goaltending/defence potentially. The Golden Knights were the second best team in goals against and have a Vezina candidate Marc-Andre Fleury between the pipes.

If Vegas has any chance of pulling the upset off they’ll need their second line of Greg Campbell, Damien Surma, and Maxim Lapierrie to continue their torrid offensive pace combing for 23 points in the six game series win over Winnipeg with 11 of them being goals.

What would really bolster their chances is if top liners Henrik Sedin and Drew Stafford decided to take over. They have by far the most skill on the team.

As for the AHL president trophy winner, they had to battle the Newmarket Saints in round one and barely escaped with a seven game series win. This doesn’t bode well for a team that blew past the competition in the regular season. I will note that they were without their best offensive weapon in Nikolai Kulemin for a couple games due to injury but they shouldn’t struggle with the eighth seed either way. Next up for them is a second round battle with the Salt Lake Golden Eagles. 

WC - 324