Expansion Golden Knights anything but typical as Tampa Bay Lightning play Vegas for the first time

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
December 18, 2017

The shine still glows on the Golden Knights.

The newest NHL team, the expansion Vegas Golden Knights, is not your typical first-year team.

As Tampa Bay gets set to face Vegas for the first time on Tuesday, the Golden Knights sit in second place in the Pacific Division, five points clear of the eighth place team in the conference and six points clear of Anaheim, the fourth place team in the Pacific.

This is definitely not your 1990’s expansion team.

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Most of the modern day expansion teams have filled their rosters with castaways from other teams. Expansion team rosters generally saw players who were third or fourth line players on other teams thrust in to first or second line roles on their new teams. The goaltenders were usually no better than third or fourth on the depth chart of their previous team.

But with the expansion rules this time around, there are plenty of top line talent on the Vegas roster.

There is a former 40-goal scorer James Neal, who has scored at least 20 goals in all 10 seasons he has been in the league. Former Tampa Bay forward Jonathan Marchessault scored 30 goals last season with Florida and currently leads Vegas with 29 points. Reilly Smith has twice reached the 20-goal mark.

Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury landed in Vegas with three Stanley Cup rings to his credit. Malcom Subban, who was acquired via waivers from Boston, is a former first-round draft pick and was the second goaltender taken in the 2012 draft behind Andrei Vasilevskiy.

On defense, the Knights have recognizable names such as Nate Schmidt, Shea Theodore, Luca Sbisa, Deryk Engelland and Colin Miller. It’s a good skating unit that can jump up in the play and add to the offense with the blue line combining for 15 goals.

And they are all guided by head coach Gerard Gallant, who was inexplicably fired by the Florida Panthers last season.

It’s not exactly Wendell Young, Mikael Andersson, Danton Cole, John Tucker, Marc Bergevin and Rob Ramage.

Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper and his staff got an up-close look at the Golden Knights on Sunday when they hosted the Florida Panthers.

”You look at the product on the ice and it’s pretty remarkable what’s going on,’’ Cooper said. “You look for holds on that team and you just don’t see any. They can roll four lines at you and six D. They’ve played four or five goalies this year and they continue to win because their team is really good.’’

While watching Vegas on tape provides insight, getting to see them live in person gives a different perspective of appreciation and understanding of what Tampa Bay will be up against as the Knights overcame a 2-0 deficit to win 5-2.

”On any team if your best asset is you work really hard, that’s what they do, it feels like they are never out of a play,’’ Cooper said. “If you fall asleep on them, they are going to get you. It was a 2-2 game (Sunday) going in to the third and they out shot (Florida) 20-2 and came out with the win. They play for three periods, they didn’t chase it and they played hard. And you look at their team as ask, who’s the first line? Who’s the fourth? Because I don’t think you can tell the difference. It’s impressive how they stay in their structure.’’

Vegas has also established their presence on home ice sporting a 12-2-1 record at T-Mobile Arena. Given the ample opportunity to find off-ice distractions readily available to visiting teams, perhaps it’s not overly surprising the Golden Knights have such a strong home record in their first year as teams come to Sin City for the first time.

Tampa Bay has been in town for three nights, having flown to Las Vegas following Saturday’s victory in Denver against the Avalanche. That’s either too much time to find trouble or plenty of time to get it out of their system – depending on how the game goes on Tuesday as the Lightning look to complete another perfect road trip.

”I guess if you had to pick a place to have a couple of days off, this probably shoots somewhere near the top of the list,’’ Cooper said with a laugh. “But in the end, we are on a 10-day road trip and it’s good to get away from the rink for a little bit because we have been going so much. We get to have the day off (on Sunday) and get to check out some of the sights of Vegas. But we’re here to win a game. We’ve been extremely fortunate to win the first three games on this road trip and the guys want all four.’’

The Lightning have no reason to be caught off guard facing what is an atypical expansion franchise.

”Vegas is a really good team, a really deep team that works hard,’’ center Brayden Point said. “So I think it’s going to be tight checking, and hard working game. … They seem really structured and they work really hard. They are really on top on the back check and stuff like that so you have to be skating and stay disciplined and try not to be fancy through the neutral zone because they can feed off the turnovers and transition.’’

The players have been educated in a crash course on what to expect.

”We know we’re going to get a good game on Tuesday so we gotta be ready and I think we will be,’’ defenseman Jake Dotchin said. “They are four lines deep, they roll every line and every line seems to be working together and working hard. That’s a big thing of theirs, but if we match their intensity and bring our game, I think we’re going to find two points on Tuesday.’’

Tod do so, the Lightning better hope they didn’t catch the Vegas flu and avoided too much time at the craps tables. Because what happens in Vegas often times, stays in Vegas.

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