As hunt for Stanley Cup begins, Golden Knights well positioned for run to final

Vegas Golden Knights center Jack Eichel (9) celebrates after scoring a goal during the third period against the Minnesota Wild, Tuesday, March 25, 2025, in St. Paul, Minn. Photo by: Abbie Parr / AP

It’s funny to look back now and remember that the Vegas Golden Knights’ rise to a perennial NHL power in their initial Stanley Cup Playoffs run was fraught with skepticism. 

The still-beloved 2017-2018 “Golden Misfits” team that won the Western Conference wasn’t supposed to be postseason-ready. Those Golden Knights still stand as one of the most surprising Stanley Cup Final participants in recent memory.

Vegas hasn’t caught anyone off guard ever since, and it’s certainly not going to this year when the 2024-2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs commence Saturday. Vegas plays the Minnesota Wild in the first round.

Making its seventh playoff appearance in eight years as a franchise, Vegas is now established in its role as the hunted—a beast that Western Conference hopefuls must tame to make a deep run.

This year’s Golden Knights may enter the 16-team bracket looking more ferocious than ever before. The franchise has put together stronger regular seasons in the past but never has it checked more of the boxes seen as prerequisites for playoff success.

Big-game experience was one of the factors that was supposed to hold the 2017-2018 team back. Few teams in the league now are more proven in crucial moments than this year’s veteran-laden Golden Knights.

Cynics cited the lack of an alpha-type superstar who could single-handedly take over games as an issue for both the 2017-2018 team and the eventual Stanley Cup champion 2022-2023 squad. Forget about that this time around, with the season 28-year-old center Jack Eichel is putting together.

Eichel set the franchise single-season points record with a staggering 17 games left to play in the regular season. He’s currently favored to finish fifth in voting for the Hart Trophy, the NHL’s version of a most valuable player award.

He’s at least guaranteed to become only the second player in franchise history to garner votes for the honor. William Karlsson in 2017-2018 was the other, and that’s whose point record Eichel shattered.

But in the playoffs, the style of game tends to slow down and become more physical and aggressive. That’s no problem for this year’s Golden Knights.

Coach Bruce Cassidy challenged his team at the beginning of the year to establish themselves as the best defensive team in the Pacific Division. They’ve arguably one-upped him and become the best defensive team in the whole league despite their best blue-liner, Shea Theodore, missing extended time to momentarily disrupt a carer season.

Nic Hague also suffered an injury late in the year but should be back for the playoffs. The 6-foot-6, 245-pound Goliath has the perfect game for the playoffs—and he’s only a third-pairing defender for the Golden Knights when he could play on the top group for multiple other teams in the league.

The Golden Knights’ goaltending might be a little less reliable on the surface—Cassidy openly demanded better play during a midseason skid—but there’s proof in concept that it can be great. Adin Hill turned into a stonewalling savant during the 2023 championship run and has started to show flashes of that ability level again towards the end of the season.

“We’re not an easy team to play against when we’re on our game,” Cassidy said recently. “It doesn’t mean you’re going to win every time, but at least we put ourselves in a position to do that.”

Nothing is guaranteed in the NHL postseason—which is statistically proven to be the most unpredictable of the major professional sports leagues’ playoffs—and every team including the Golden Knights have pitfalls they must avoid.

Vegas, for instance, can’t let Eichel defer too much instead of attacking and shooting for himself. It also needs to hope late-season injuries to the likes of Eichel, power-play ace Tomáš Hertl and Hague are as non-serious as they seem to be on the surface.

After being top-heavy the past couple seasons, the Western Conference appears to be wide open this time around. The Golden Knights and Winnipeg Jets were the most consistent sides on the season as a whole but the other six teams in the playoff field—the Dallas Stars, Los Angeles Kings, Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues—have all looked like Stanley Cup contenders at different stretches.

It’s not going to be easy for any team to survive the next three rounds and two months to reach the Stanley Cup Final, but don’t doubt the Golden Knights’ chances. They’ve done it twice before, and this version might be built even closer to preferred playoff specifications.

This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.