Already toast of hockey, Golden Knights' success story deserves wider audience

Rob Mixer

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Already toast of hockey, Golden Knights' success story deserves wider audience image

Each Monday during the NHL playoffs, Rob Mixer takes a look at the biggest storylines from the hockey week that was.

I stand before you in awe of the Vegas Golden Knights.

As a person who has watched each of their games in this Stanley Cup tournament, I should be used to it by now, right? Well … I’m not.

With each passing win by the Golden Knights, my desire to be a fly on the wall of Seattle’s ownership group board meetings grows stronger and stronger. But that’s a story for a different day. These days belong to the Golden Knights and their story, one that’s been criminally under-covered nationally (outside of the hockey media). For whatever reason — and I’m guilty of this, too — the magnitude of what Vegas is doing has not fully registered.

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Keep in mind:

1. This is an expansion team.

2. And those are not supposed to be good.

3. Filled with cast-offs (albeit pretty good cast-offs) from 30 other clubs.

4. Many of those players’ selections were “negotiated” by their old teams. Gulp, Columbus.

5. They were assembled in June, first took the ice together in September, and are headed to the Western Conference finals.

6. The Western. Conference. Finals.

MORE: Seattle's future franchise name possibilities, ranked

That means the Golden Knights, picked by many to be a lottery team, are four wins away from playing for the Stanley Cup. And here’s the dream matchup: Vegas vs. Pittsburgh. Marc-Andre Fleury, who is currently playing the best hockey of his life in goal for the Golden Knights, was cast aside by the Penguins in the expansion draft to make room for the younger (and presumably better) Matt Murray.

How incredible would that be? And not only is it enticing to think about … it’s entirely possible.

The Penguins have the tougher road, as we stand today. They’re down 3-2 with Game 6 coming up tonight at PPG Paints Arena, after a late-game collapse in Game 5 put them behind the eight-ball. the Penguins are trying to advance, of course, but the bigger picture is their quest to win three straight Stanley Cups, which hasn’t been done since 1983.

It’s conceivable that Pittsburgh’s road to history goes through Vegas — and the story can’t get much better.

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Nashville has a Winnipeg problem

It feels like we’re resigned to saying goodbye to the Predators, sooner than later.

A trendy pick to come out of the Western Conference, the Predators are on the brink of elimination with Game 6 tonight at Bell MTS Place. Tyler Dellow of The Athletic pointed this out on Twitter, but one of the items ailing the Predators is that their top-six forwards just don’t stack up to what the Jets are rolling out.

The Jets are doing this despite Patrik Laine struggling, and Kyle Connor had been in the same boat until Game 5. Their big guns have showed up, where the Predators just don’t have enough. Look at what happened in that game: Nashville was in a 1-1 tie in the second period before the Jets blew the doors off the game, and Connor scored the first two playoff goals of his career.

That’s the depth Winnipeg has offensively, and the Predators need everything going right to keep up.

Winnipeg has played with a ton of confidence, and this quote from head coach Paul Maurice sums it up perfectly.

"You tell your hockey team what you want from them," Maurice said of his message ahead of Saturday. "I’m not talking about play hard, skate hard. That’s not it. We have a certain way that we play. That’s what you want. There’s a certain freedom. It’s not casual by any means. It’s a hard-on-the-puck game. It’s a bit like Kyle Connor’s game. We have to do some things with the puck. We can’t be afraid to make mistakes. That’s all you want."

Rob Mixer