We still haven’t seen the Golden Knights at their best
After a lackluster regular season, the Vegas Golden Knights have won their first two series of the Stanley Cup Playoffs to advance to the Western Conference Final without having faced elimination.
The Knights are now in the Western Conference final for the fifth time in their nine years as a franchise, and up next in their pursuit of a second Stanley Cup in team history is a tough series against the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche.
In his first year with the team, star winger Mitch Marner has worked to put to bed the narrative that he can’t perform in the playoffs, as he helped power the Golden Knights past the Anaheim Ducks and currently leads all scorers in the postseason with 18 points.
On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed why the Golden Knights may have another level to reach, which they will need against the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Avalanche.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Vegas Golden Knights, they have punched their ticket. Their fifth conference final appearance in just nine years as a franchise. It has been an unbelievable run of success for Bill Foley, Kelly McCrimmon, George McPhee and that whole crow out in Vegas. Again, even if they don’t make it next year, they’re going to go through their first decade as a franchise, and in 50% of those seasons, they’ve gone to the conference final or further… With all that being said, I watched this series, and I never got the vibe that Vegas, even though they won it in six… I never got the vibe that Vegas was really dominating this series. It was a really, really weird one to kind of watch in real time.
Carter Hutton: Yeah, and obviously Anaheim being 4-0 after losses, I kind of thought Anaheim was going to win this one yesterday… A lot of credit to Carter Hart, he was very good in this game. He was busy, and the fact that Brayden McNabb was missing and they were able to defend and keep pucks out of the net, I think his goals saved above expected was almost over four at some point during this stretch here… And they’re getting points, and a big factor in this has been Mitch Marner. Mitch Marner’s finding a way to do it, and I’m hearing the critics already talking about, ‘Well it’s not the Atlantic Division…’ But that being said, you can only play the hand that you’re dealt, and that’s what Mitch Marner’s doing right now, and he’s doing a great job. You can also make the argument that Brett Howden has eight goals playing with him, another beautiful assist last night.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…