Steve Carp - Vegas Born: The Remarkable Story of The Golden Knights

Vegas Born

The Remarkable Story of
The Golden Knights

Steve Carp

Table of Contents

Copyright 2018 Steve Carp

EBOOK ISBN: 9781644382011

HARDCOVER ISBN: 9781644382004

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Published by BookLocker.com, Inc., St. Petersburg, Florida.

BookLocker.com, Inc., 2018, First Edition

Dedication

In memory of my dad, Joel Carp, who turned me on to hockey and would have loved the Golden Knights.

The Stanley Cup stands 35 and one-quarter inches tall and weighs 34 and a half pounds. And when Alex Ovechkin accepted the trophy from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman shortly after 8 p.m. on June 7, 2018, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, it signaled the end of the Washington Capitals decades of futility and frustration.

As Ovechkin picked up the Cup and held it over his head, he admitted it was a little heavier than he expected it to be. But as he lifted the silver chalice, he also lifted the cloud from the franchise which had drafted him in 2006 as the NHLs number one draft pick.

George McPhee, the man responsible for drafting Ovechkin, wasnt watching. He was in no mood to be happy for Ovechkin or the other 11 Capitals who would skate around the rink with the Cup, players he had drafted or traded for or signed as free agents during his 17-year tenure as Washingtons general manager.

McPhee was very proud of his most recent accomplishment, that being the building of the most successful expansion franchise in professional sports history.

The Vegas Golden Knights had set all sorts of records en route to the Stanley Cup Final. They had won 51 games. They had amassed 109 points. They won the Pacific Division title. They were Western Conference champions, having defeated the Los Angeles Kings, the San Jose Sharks and the Winnipeg Jets in consecutive playoff series to get there.

And they were three games from winning the Stanley Cup. They defeated the Capitals 6-4 in Game 1 and it appeared they were going to culminate their improbable journey with a championship. Plans were even being made for a parade down Las Vegas Boulevard, better known to Las Vegans as the Strip, though the team distanced itself from any parade talk.

But the Capitals proved to be a formidable opponent. Coach Barry Trotz made a few adjustments and they would win the next four games, shutting down the Golden Knights explosive offense.

Yes, the Capitals managed to catch some breaks over those four games. Goaltender Braden Holtby made an unbelievable save with two minutes to play in Game 2 on Alex Tuch to keep the Capitals in front as Washington would go on to win 3-2 and even the series at a game apiece.

In Game 4, with the Knights trailing two games to one, James Neal had an open net in the first period and appeared to be ready to put his team ahead. Instead, Neals shot clanged off the left goalpost and the Capitals would go on to score four unanswered goals and put a stranglehold on the series with a three games to one lead.

And as resilient as the Golden Knights were, the Capitals were equally resilient. They came back from a 3-2 deficit in the third period on goals from Devante Smith-Pelly and Lars Eller, then turned it over to their goaltender to close the door.

As the final horn sounded, the Knights skated to their goaltender, Marc-Andre Fleury, to embrace him and thank him for what he did to give them a chance to play for the Stanley Cup. Fleury had three rings from his time with the Pittsburgh Penguins and going into the Stanley Cup Final he had been nothing short of sensational. He was considered the favorite to win the Conn Smythe Trophy, which goes to the Most Valuable Player in the playoffs.

That honor would ultimately go to Ovechkin.

As the players lined up for the traditional handshakes, they were greeted by a long standing ovation by the Golden Knights fans. It was tough to have come this far only to fall short. But as center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare said, Only one team gets to go home happy at the end of the season.

There was hockey in Las Vegas long before the Golden Knights arrived. The sport has roots dating back to the 1960s when the semipro Las Vegas Gamblers played at the old Commercial Center rink off East Sahara Avenue. There was also the Outlaws, another independent semipro team.

In 1993, the city welcomed the Las Vegas Thunder, which played in the International Hockey League, which had grown from a midwestern bus league to one that stretched to the West Coast and was looking to challenge the American Hockey League as the games Triple-A level. The Thunder, which was coached by former New York Islanders star Butch Goring and built by longtime hockey executive Bob Strumm, won their division in their inaugural season and would sign several familiar names. Radek Bonk played for the Thunder. So did Alexei Yashin. Curtis Joseph, Clint Malarchuk, Pokey Reddick, Ruslan Salei and Petr Nedved all wore the Thunder sweater either before, during or after their NHL careers.

Despite having regular success on the ice, the Thunder folded in 1999 after they failed to secure an extension on their lease with the Thomas & Mack Center. Hockey returned to the city in 2003 when the Las Vegas Wranglers of the ECHL came to town and played their home games at the Orleans Arena. The Wranglers were initially coached by Glen Gulutzan, who would eventually go on to be an NHL head coach, first in Dallas, then in Calgary. The team had a winning record in nine of its 11 seasons and went to the Kelly Cup Final in 2008.

The ECHL was the equivalent of double-A hockey and it was affordable. Billy Johnson, the teams president, had a free hand to promote and the team drew good crowds, particularly on weekends. The Wranglers would send 19 players to the NHL, one of whom happened to be Deryk Engelland.

But like the Thunder, the Wranglers were having lease issues. And when their lease was up in 2014, the Boyd Group, which owned the Orleans and operated the Orleans Arena, decided it didnt want an anchor tenant. The team suspended operations and folded by late 2015.

Many of those Wranglers fans were starving for hockey. And even though the NHL meant higher prices than what they were used to paying, they embraced the Golden Knights. Not only did they have a team to root for again, they had a team playing at the games highest level. It was a team that would provide countless thrills and a lifetime of memories in its inaugural season.

It had been a truly remarkable run, one no one in their right mind could have predicted. Before the season, few predicted the team would even post a winning record, much less make the playoffs. Those that did take an optimistic point of view and thought this team of Golden Misfits, as the players called themselves jokingly, probably werent convinced they would win a single playoff series, much less three. The players had been cast aside by their former teams and James Neal, who was left exposed in the NHL Expansion Draft by the Nashville Predators, said the Knights were a bunch of golden misfits.

But this team exceeded everyones expectations, including that of its owner, Bill Foley, who was hoping to make the playoffs by the third season and compete for the Stanley Cup in six. The timetable had been moved up and nobody was complaining.