The Vegas Golden Knights are the most successful expansion team in the history of the National Hockey League. As they begin their 10th season of competition, the Golden Knights are clearly among the elite teams in the sport.
This is certainly not a surprise. They made the Stanley Cup Finals in their first year and they have made the playoffs in every year but one. They have top players up an down their lineup, and head coach Bruce Cassidy appears to have an excellent chance to lead this team to the championship for the second time in four years.
Their best player is center Jack Eichel. The former Buffalo Sabre had 28 goals and 66 assists last year, and Eichel is regularly in the middle of any crucial on-ice moment the Golden Knights face. While he has been a distant second to Connor McDavid since they both came into the league during the 2015 Draft, he leads McDavid in Stanley Cup titles by 1-0 margin.
That number clearly gets under the skin of McDavid, and it has to be something that is a source of pride for Eichel. There is little doubt that Eichel has plenty of help from Mark Stone, Pavel Dorofeyev, William Karlsson, Shea Theodore and Noah Hanifin, and McDavid certainly wishes he had a supporting cast that could get him over the championship line.
The Golden Knights made the boldest move of the offseason when they acquired Mitch Marner from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Toronto's perennial postseason collapse led Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving to make a major change, as he moved Marner in a sign-and-trade deal for Nicolas Roy.
Marner will score 30 goals, 110 point for Golden Knights
The Maple Leafs needed to have a scapegoat for their multiple Stanley Cup failures, and Marner was the easiest to blame since he was on the way to free agency and his postseason scoring has not been as dynamic as his regular-season production.
Nevertheless, Marner should feel unencumbered now that he is out of the fish bowl in Toronto. The team's long history of not winning the Stanley Cup since 1967 weighs on every player in a Maple Leaf sweater, and that will no longer be the case for Marner. He will find it much easier to breathe in his new home.
On the ice, Marner is a slick playmaker who excels at setting up his teammates and can also put the puck in the net. He is coming off a career-high 102 points last season after netting 27 goals and 75 assists. He has had three other seasons in his nine-year career when he scored 94 points or better.
Marner has been an All-Star twice in his career and he will serve as a key performer for Canada in the upcoming Olympics.
Marner's presence as the right wing on the Golden Knights' top line with Eichel at center and Dorofeyev on left wing should be among the best in the league.
That line will have an unstoppable characteristic to it and Marner will enhance his superstar status with a 30-goal season.
Goalie Adin Hill has to assert himself for the Golden Knights
There is little doubt that Adin Hill has had good numbers for Vegas in his three seasons in the desert.
He had a 32-13-5 record last year with a 2.47 goals against average and a .906 save percentage. That last figure is solid, but it is not elite. He had a .909 save percentage in 2023-24, and a .915 mark in 2022-23.
Hill was a hero in that season when the Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup with an 11-4 record while recording a 2.17 GAA and a league-best .932 save percentage.
However, he could not come close to that form in last year's playoffs when he had a 5-6 record with a 2.93 GAA and a disappointing .887 save percentage.
If Hill does not perform like an elite goalie, Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon will have to go shopping for a new goalie at the NHL trade deadline
