NHL’s Golden Knights draw winning hand in Sin City
LAS VEGAS Canada has made significant contributions to the Sin City entertainment scene from Paul Anka to Rich Little to Céline Dion to Cirque du Soleil.
Add NHL hockey to the list. The Vegas Golden Knights have become one of the hottest draws in Vegas, both on and off the ice.
The NHL pushed for a team here because they wanted to establish a professional sports beachhead before the National Football League arrived.
There were some concerns because of the NHL’s history in nontraditional market that roughly translates to a city where ice is usually found only in drinks.
Critics pointed to the absence of professional sports in the city and the variety of entertainment options available on The Strip. The fears were unfounded. The Golden Knights are 17th in the NHL in attendance, but that’s only because there’s no more room in T-Mobile Arena.
The team has been drawing standing-room-only crowds and that figure represents 103.3 per cent of capacity.
One rule of thumb in the sports industry is expansion teams don’t have to be good coming out of the box. They can go with a minimumwage payroll and rely on the novelty value to fill seats.
In one respect, the Golden Knights have followed that plan because their total cap hit is $67 million — $8 million under the maximum — and the only teams spending less on talent are Colorado, Carolina and Arizona.
But this isn’t a team waiting around to get better going into Saturday night’s game against the Canadiens (7 p.m., Sportsnet 360, CITY-TV, TVA Sports, TSN-690 Radio). Vegas has the best record in the Western Conference.
The record is a tribute to two men who figure to collect some hardware at the NHL Awards that will be held here in June.
General manager George McPhee is the man who put this team together. He benefited from the fact the NHL (a) wanted this franchise to succeed and (b) felt owners Bill Foley and the Maloof family deserved to get some value for the $500 million expansion fee.
McPhee drafted 30 players — one from each of the NHL teams —and 18 of them are playing for the Golden Knights.
McPhee made deals to pass on some unprotected players and received draft picks in return.
He also used some of his other selections, including Alexei Emelin and David Schlemko, as trade bait to add future picks.
He filled in the blanks on the roster by trading for Reilly Smith and Shea Theodore and claiming goaltender Malcolm Subban off waivers to serve as a backup to Marc-André Fleury.
He also hired Gerard Gallant to coach the team. Gallant was a popularassistant coach with the Can a di ens under Michel Therrien and had the Florida Panthers heading in the right direction when he was abruptly fired by Tom Rowe, reportedly because Gallant wasn’t enthusiastic about analytics.
Gallant has the Golden Knights playing a fast-paced game that is a winning formula in today’s NHL and is also a crowd-pleaser, not only in Vegas, but on the road where the Golden Knights are a popular attraction. The team is averaging 3.4 goals a game, second only to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Gallant said he had an idea this was a good team when the Knights won nine of their first 10 games.
“But I realized how good we were when we went on the road beat Nashville and Dallas, two tough physical teams,” Gallant said.
“We have a hard-working group and they believe in themselves. We don’t have a lot of big names, but they go out there and make plays.”
The team’s top scorer is Jonathan Marchessault, an undersized Quebecer who was given his first break when Gallant was coaching in Florida.
The biggest surprise has been 24-year-old Swede William Karlsson, who has a team-high 30 goals andisaleague-bestplus-32. Hehas 50 points, doubling his production in Columbus last season.
“We knew he was a strong defensive player, but he’s developed into a very good two-way player,” Gallant said.