AIDAN POLLARD
Assistant Sports Editor
Even if the San Jose Sharks sweep the Golden Knights in round two, Vegas’ season will be an accomplishment exceeding any other expansion team in the history of sports.
The Vegas Golden Knights have not been subtle, nor have they understated their success in any way throughout this NHL season. Between their witty and arrogant Twitter account and their beyond record-breaking season, Vegas has not been willing to pull any punches going into the playoff season, and the LA Kings didn’t even come close to shutting them up.
Vegas swept the LA Kings in the best-of-seven round one series to move on to round two of the NHL playoffs. The Golden Knights shut LA out in both the first and last games of the series. They will go up against the Sharks, who also swept round one against the Anaheim Ducks, in round two.
The Golden Knights won three out of the four of their games with the Sharks during the regular season. As the only two teams who swept their round one competition, Vegas and San Jose are likely to be extremely fresh and well-rested going into round two.
Vegas’ record against the Sharks clearly puts them as the favorite, and if Vegas moves on to the semi-finals after round two, it would just further the merit of their historic season.
I think the western conference semi-finals are going to see Vegas facing the Nashville Predators and the eastern conference is going to see a matchup between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning. After that, for all intents and purposes, it’s a toss-up.
Vegas is my favorite to win the whole cup, but that isn’t to say the competition they’ll have to face are pushovers.
Nashville and Tampa Bay have both had extremely strong seasons. Both teams led their divisions with more points than Vegas led the Pacific Division. Even if Vegas ends up against the Winnipeg Jets in the semi-finals, they’ll have their work cut out for them.
Winnipeg is another team that led the Golden Knights in points throughout the season, but, just like the Predators and the Lightning, the Jets have a losing record against Vegas.
To Vegas’ advantage, all the teams that have a winning record against the new franchise are either out of the playoffs or didn’t make it in to begin with. It seems like Vegas spent all their bad games on bad and mediocre teams this season. The only teams Vegas has never beaten are the NY Islanders and the Minnesota Wild.
The Islanders finished their season second to last in their division, and the Wild lost to the Jets in the first round of the playoffs.
The round two schedule hasn’t been announced yet, as there are still four series to be completed before the round can start, but Vegas will be facing off against the San Jose Sharks for a minimum of four games in the upcoming seven game series.
For all fans of the new team or just fans of sports history in general, Vegas’ run through the playoffs this year is one to keep a very close eye on.