Las vigas — Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley correctly predicted that his team would win the Stanley Cup in its sixth season in the NHL.
It is not expected that it will be her only championship.
Foley wants to maintain the level of excellence that Vegas has achieved since joining the league as an expansion franchise for the 2017-2018 season. The Golden Knights reached the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season, and have been knocking on the door since then and back this season.
They won the Stanley Cup by defeating the Florida Panthers in the Cup Final. The best-of-7 streak in five games ended with a 9-3 win at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday.
Foley is hungry for more.
“We’re not done,” he said Friday. “I told [Vegas forward William Karlsson] When he signed an eight-year contract (June 24, 2019) I would expect three Stanley Cups during the term of his contract. When we are on the ice we get on [championship] I took the picture, looked at him and said, “Well, you have one.”
The Golden Knights are in a position to make multiple Stanley Cup runs with the core of the roster under contract for next season. attackers Brett Howden And Pavel Dorofeev They are designated to become restricted free agents, and Ivan BarbashevAnd Teddy blogger And Phil Kessel They are free to sign elsewhere. July 1st. The eight best defenders under contract for the next season, with Brayden Paschal The only unrestricted free agent suspended.
“One of the things I feel about this team, though, is that we’ll be able to hold the heart of a Stanley Cup championship team together better than many of our previous winners,” said Kelly McCrimmon, Vegas general manager. “We’re very good with locked-in players next season. We’ll have some work to do, we’ll have some things to manage, but we’ll have real substance that’s important for this team’s return and hopefully that experience can make you a better team. Whole dressing room She is a Stanley Cup champion.”
Vegas was led offensively in the playoffs by its offensive linemen Jack Eichel (26 points, six goals, 20 assists), Jonathan Marquessault (25 points; 13 goals, 12 assists), Mark Stone (24 points; 11 goals, 13 assists) and Chandler Stephenson (20 points; 10 goals, 10 assists). All four will return next season, though Stone’s health is in question after two back surgeries in the space of nine months.
Stone missed the last 39 games of the regular season after his second surgery on January 31. He had originally had surgery to repair a disc in his lower back on May 19, 2022.
“I didn’t know he wasn’t healthy, guys play through things, so I hope it’s not serious,” said Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy. “He’ll need some time away from the rink, like everyone else, but especially in his condition. Hopefully he’ll recover and be able to reinforce this area so that’s no problem again.”
However, there is some work to be done in the coming weeks. Logan Thompson He is the only contracted goalkeeper Aden HillAnd Laurent Brossuyt And Jonathan Quick They are set to become unrestricted free agents. goalkeeper position Robin Lehner it is uncertain; He missed the entire season after having hip surgery last summer.
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Hill started Vegas’ final 14 games of the postseason after Brossuyt suffered a lower body injury in Game 3 of the Western Conference Round 2 against the Edmonton Oilers. He finished 11-4 with a 2.17 goals against average and a . 932 save percentage, including two shutouts in the Conference Final against the Dallas Stars.
However, the heart is still going strong, and the Golden Knights also have a number of prospects potentially ready to jump into the NHL. Although McCrimmon has signed or traded high-profile players in the past (Ishel, for example), he has not mortgaged the future.
“There’s this idea from some people that we were all, and if we didn’t win the title this year, it was hit or miss,” McCrimmon said. “I think that couldn’t be further from the truth. We go into the NHL Draft as the Stanley Cup champion with a first-round pick. If you step back and look at how many times that’s happened, it doesn’t happen that often. We have five picks in this draft, and it wasn’t We have fewer than six draft picks.”
Just days after winning the cup for the first time, the Golden Knights are eager to do it again. They made sure to put themselves in a position to run again.
“That’s our goal, to build a team that can be a competitive team on an ongoing basis,” McCrimmon said. “I always qualify it by saying I don’t try to downplay anything that happened in year one, it was a match like no other and it was as special a season as any organisation. But objectively, when you take a step back and look at where you want to try and go, winning was a priority Real for us after we achieved such success in the first year.
“If we want to be a competitive team on a consistent basis, we need to keep improving our people, and we’ve done that every year.”
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