Golden Knights’ success ‘bittersweet’ for bookies
Expansion team has potential to cost oddsmakers millions after pre-season predictions
If the Vegas Golden Knights win the Stanley Cup, Jay Kornegay will be front and centre at the victory parade. But as a Vegas oddsmaker who listed the expansion team at 200-to-1 to win its division and 500-to-1to win the Stanley Cup, he joked, “I’ll be there with my resume.”
Kornegay, vice-president at Race and Sports Operations at the Westgate Las Vegas Superbook, says he and oddsmakers in Vegas have been shocked at the success of the Golden Knights.
That’s both on the ice, where the team is destined to be come the greatest expansion franchise in the history of North American sports, and off the ice, where betting action on the team is close to NFL levels and well over 10 times the action of other hockey games.
“It’s been a roller-coaster ride,” says Kornegay. “We are going to get punched if they win the division. It’s a knockout punch if they win the Stanley Cup.”
Kornegay wouldn’t reveal what his book stands to lose at 500-to-1, but estimated Vegas-wide it’s in the “millions and millions of dollars.”
The oddsmakers have done well so far, says Kornegay, because the “Sharps” or the professional bettors, mostly bet against Vegas — to lose a lot in the first month — and take the “under” for total points (set at 68.5 points). But the oddsmakers are also torn. The Knights are the only local pro sports team, and they’ve all become fans, says Kornegay, himself a season-ticket holder.
“It’s a bittersweet thing we have going on,” says Kornegay. “We’re all fans. We’re all rooting for them. Yet, we have this liability attached to the Knights.
“I don’t think we’ll ever dig ourselves out of it. It’s a big dollar amount. We’re not going to shut down. We’ll have to raise the prices of our ham sandwiches, maybe.”
Heading into Tuesday’s game, the Vegas has 74 points in 52 games to lead the Pacific Division and Western Conference and remain within striking distance of the Tampa Bay Lightning for first overall in the NHL. The Golden Knights have accrued 69.2 per cent of points available, far eclipsing the rate of the 1994 Florida Panthers (49.4 per cent, the previous best in the NHL in that regard). The Panthers finished with 83 points in 84 games.
There are any number of pet theories as to why the Vegas Golden Knights are so successful.
“Everybody’s been talking about the Vegas flu,” says Oilers captain Connor McDavid. “It’s a tough building to play in. They play fast.”
Penguins captain Sidney Crosby figures there’s an altitude issue — and maybe a scheduling issue that has Eastern teams either play Vegas on the second of back-to-back nights. Or, you know, that Vegas flu if it happens to be a stand-alone game and the visitors get in early.
“You can do anything there,” said Crosby. “It probably doesn’t help walking through smoke-filled casinos. Probably not the best thing for you to do for two days.”
Knights coach Gerard Gallant says it took him a while, but he’s come around to believe in the chip-on-the-shoulder theory. Basically, when a player goes up against his old team, he plays with a little extra jump. Given the Golden Knights’ entire roster played somewhere else last year, that’s happening for 82 games. “Every time we played a game against one of our player’s old teams, that player played really well,” says Gallant. “I wasn’t making a big deal out of it, but finally it got to the point where I said you guys are right, I guess you do have a chip on your shoulder.”
Of course, Vegas acknowledges it got a better quality of player in expansion than previous teams.
TRACTOR RIDE: Former Leafs defenceman François Beauchemin, in his third go-round with the Anaheim Ducks, plans to retire at the end of the season, return to Sorel, Que., with his family and work on his father-in-law’s farm.
“I’ll be 38 in June,” he said. “I’ll be taking time off and working on the farm. Soybeans. Corn. Driving the tractor. I did that a lot when I was in the American league (AHL). I would work and harvest. It’s something I like to do, being outside all the time.”
ACCORDING TO ELIAS: Connor McDavid had a four-goal, one-assist performance on Monday night.
He was the 11th player to score five points in a game this season and third to score four goals. Only one player younger than McDavid (21 years, 23 days) scored at least four goals in a game for the Oilers: Wayne Gretzky. He had done it six times before reaching McDavid’s age. There are only four teams McDavid has yet to score against: Boston, New Jersey, Ottawa and Winnipeg.
STATS AND FACTS: The Maple Leafs are the only team to score seven goals in a game at least five times . . . The Rangers have posted a 16-0-0 record when leading entering the third period this season . . . Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne is on an eightgame winning streak (1.85 GAA, .932 save percentage, two shutouts) . . . Washington centre Nicklas Backstrom has 568 career assists. With three more, he’ll pass Shane Doan and Frank Mahovlich to rank 100th all-time in the NHL.