SIN CITY KNIGHTS SIR-REAL
Nobody, including the brilliant minds who put together an NHL team in Las Vegas, expected to see the long shots hit the playoff jackpot so soon
As a Day 1 executive with the Vegas Golden Knights, Murray Craven has enjoyed a frontrow seat for one of the most extraordinary stories in NHL history.
He was there for the uncertain early days of the startup operation. He was there for the key hirings in the team’s hockey department.
He was at the table for the expansion draft and the countless deals that built the Knights. And now that, remarkably, they’re on to the second round of the playoffs, he’ll tell you one thing about everything he’s seen; one incontrovertible fact about the Knights.
Never, in his wildest dreams, could he have predicted any of this. Really, who could? “There’s no way and we readily admit that,” says Craven, the former Canuck and current executive vice-president of the Knights. “We just tried to pick the very best players we could from each team and our pro scouts did a phenomenal job of picking guys who had upside or hadn’t been utilized.
“But we have to be honest. A lot of things have lined up for us. There’s been a couple of times this year where you go, ‘How has this happened?’ I think we’ve learned to enjoy the ride.”
Even if that ride is far from over. Tuesday night, the NHL’s newest — sorry, can’t call them expansion anymore — team continued its impossible dream of a year, completing a sweep of the Los Angeles Kings in a series that confirmed everything they were in the regular season.
In a gruelling four-game meat-grinder, the Knights played their trademark speed-and-pressure game but also stood up to the Kings’ punishing physicality, grinding out four one-goal decisions against a team with a championship pedigree.
True, the key was the goaltending of Marc-Andre Fleury, the Round 1 winner of the Smythe after recording two shutouts and surrendering three goals against the Kings. But it’s the totality of the Knights’ story, the across-the-board excellence set against a surreal backdrop, that continues to astonish and inspire the hockey world.
You can try to explain it. It certainly isn’t all pixie dust and magic beans. But the larger beauty of the Knights’ tale is it’s simply one of those wondrous stories sports delivers from time to time — one that defies all reason and purpose.
“Obviously the playoffs have taken it up another notch,” says Craven, who’s currently living on the strip, walking distance from T-Mobile Arena and ground zero for the craziness. “I was getting a haircut the other day and a lady was talking about it. She asked, ‘Do we have more home games?’ I go, ‘Yeah, we have more home games.’ ” Vegas, baby.
Craven, of course, is part of a front-office team that laid the Knights’ foundation and while there’s an element of the fantastical for everything that followed, that hockey department was rooted in the game’s traditional values.
GM George McPhee, assistant GM Kelly McCrimmon, director of player personnel Vaughn Karpan, former New Jersey super scout David Conte and Craven are all experienced hockey men who came to the team with a variety of backgrounds — and something to prove.
Former Canucks’ assistant general manager Laurence Gilman also acted as a consultant in advance of the expansion draft that represented a better deal than those presented to other newbies and say this for McPhee et al. They maximized their opportunity.
“There was no let’s try this, let’s take a chance,” Craven says. “We didn’t take any chances. All our guys were experienced, guys who’ve been around the game a long time. We really didn’t miss on anybody.”
That’s part of it. The Knights set out to build a team that could play an uptempo style. Owing to the expansion agreement, they also had access to a level of player who wasn’t
available in past drafts.
But that doesn’t explain Wild Bill Karlsson’s 43-goal season after he scored 15 over the previous two in Columbus. It doesn’t explain how Karlsson, Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith became one of the most feared lines in hockey. It doesn’t explain a lineup that featured five 20-goal scorers and finished
fourth in the NHL in goals.
Come to think of it, not a lot explains what happens this year.
“Everyone had a career year,” says Craven.
But they’re riding the wave now. As good as things look, the Knights leveraged the expansion draft into three top-15 picks at last summer’s draft and 12 picks overall in addition
to three second- and third-rounders in 2019 and three more second-rounders in 2020.
If you listen carefully, you can still hear NHL GMs whining about the deals Vegas cut last summer. As it is, the new Seattle team down the road won’t find the pickings as easy.
In the meantime, Vegas has embraced the team as only it can. The faux Statue of Liberty outside New York New York has been draped in a giant Knights’ jersey. A group in Elvis costumes sits next to the visitors’ bench at T-Mobile. The official watch party for Game 4 was held on the beach at Mandalay Bay.
OK, technically it wasn’t a real beach because Vegas, you know, is located in a desert. But there will be more parties in the near future.
“I think the city was primed for hockey to be the first pro sport here,” says Craven. “I think it was important for us to plant our flag. If we would have been the third sport it would have been harder.” Instead, they’ve made it look easy. “Our guys have done it all year. I don’t think anyone under-estimates anymore. We might have caught a bit of that early on but if you still under-estimate us, shame on you.”