We are 30 games into the Vegas Golden Knights’ 2023-24 season, and the defending Stanley Cup champs haven’t given their fans much to complain about. The club’s 20-5-5 record actually represents a slight improvement over the 20-9-1 mark they boasted at the same point last season, which is also good for the best mark in the Western Conference. An unbeatable 11-0-1 start gave way to short-lived offensive concerns that, with 30 goals in their past seven games, have largely been answered.
Through the ebbs and flows of what is roughly the first 40% of the season, there have been plenty of positive stories coupled with brief moments of concern. The fact remains, however, that the Golden Knights remain firmly in the driver’s seat of the Pacific Division (even in the face of the hard-charging Edmonton Oilers) and have done nothing to diminish their odds of repeating as champions.
With that in mind, let’s take a look back at what have been the biggest takeaways coming out of the season’s opening stretch, as well as what it might mean for Vegas moving forward:
A Statement Out of the Gate
It seems hard to imagine now, but there was at least some uncertainty surrounding the Golden Knights heading into their Cup defense. For one thing, the Stanley Cup hangover seems to be a real thing (from ‘‘Past champions talk Stanley Cup hangovers,” The Globe & Mail, 10/26/23). Furthermore, there was also the fact that the club had traded away top-six mainstay Reilly Smith in the summer without bringing in any significant pieces. This was also an aging roster with injury-prone players who still faced questions about their inexperienced goaltending tandem of Adin Hill and Logan Thompson.
Suffice to say, winning their first seven games and netting points in their first 12 quickly put to rest any concerns over whether Vegas was ready for its follow-up campaign. By compiling the best start ever by a reigning Cup champ, the Golden Knights not only announced themselves as the front-runners for another championship but provided some early cushion in the Pacific.
That 11-0-1 start made it that much easier for the Golden Knights to withstand the mini-slump that would come next. Sure, there were moments of frustration in the 3-5-3 stretch that would follow, but the team never surrendered their division lead, and their record never faltered significantly.
Everyone is Contributing
Expectations related to scoring in the NHL can be somewhat fickle. You want your highest-paid stars to make good on their contracts and lead the way offensively, but you also want goals to be balanced across the lineup so that depth lines can also be dangerous. Expecting both seems contradictory – or is it?
Given those attitudes, the Golden Knights could not have asked for a better opening 30 games. Up front, those high-paid stars are delivering, as Jack Eichel, Mark Stone, William Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault (combined cap hit this year: $30.4 million) each have at least 10 goals and over 20 points thus far. Perhaps more impressively, though, all 23 skaters that have seen game action for Vegas have recorded at least one goal.
You’d think that a strong blend of top-tier performance and depth contributions would be enough to generate more than what is currently the league’s 10th-ranked offense. It has, however, been enough to produce at least four goals in seven of their past eight games, not to mention help propel one of the best teams across the NHL.
Hill is the Team MVP
Eichel leads the team in scoring with 33 points. Stone has stayed healthy for all 30 games while maintaining what is nearly a point-per-game pace. Karlsson is dramatically outpacing the production of his past few seasons while sharing the team plus/minus lead of plus-11. On the back end, Shea Theodore was enjoying a stellar start to the year before suffering an upper-body injury that required surgery, and Brayden McNabb is quietly on track for the best season of his 12-year NHL career.
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Still, none of them would be named team MVP if such a thing were voted on after 30 games. Hill had been sensational before going down with a recent lower-body injury. The 27-year-old’s early season performance not only helped him lay claim to the top job in the Golden Knights’ crease, but early season status as the possible Vezina front-runner. Currently sporting a 10-2-2 record, his .935 save percentage and 1.87 goals against average both lead the league.
No one is resting on the laurels of 30 games – not with players like Ivan Barbashev still struggling, injuries keeping Hill, Theodore and Alec Martinez out of the lineup and divisional challenges coming in the form of the Vancouver Canucks, Los Angeles Kings and those surging Oilers. And yet, so far, so good. With nearly 40% of the season complete, Vegas is right where it wants to be.
