Jeffrey T. Barnes/Associated Press
The Vegas Golden Knights, a perennial playoff contender since their inception, entered the season prepared to make their most ambitious, aggressive run at the Stanley Cup yet. They were a consensus Cup favorite, with DraftKings Sportsbook listing them on October 12 as tied with the Tampa Bay Lightning for the second-best odds (+700) to win it all.
And that was before November’s massive trade for Jack Eichel. It was not only a substantial addition but also an ostensible status symbol. The franchise was all-in.
It would have been exceptionally difficult to imagine that this same team would be gasping for air in mid-April, with serious questions about whether they would make it to the postseason at all.
Vegas sits at 85 points with eight games remaining, three behind Dallas for the final wild-card spot and three behind Los Angeles, who are third in the Pacific. Vegas does have a game in hand on the Kings, but Dallas has one on the Golden Knights.
A lot has gone wrong for Vegas this season—most prominently injuries. Eichel’s was accounted for upon his acquisition, but Mark Stone, Reilly Smith, Max Pacioretty, Nicolas Hague and Robin Lehner are among the team’s top players to have missed a substantial number of games.
The Golden Knights are still dealing with excessive injuries, and now they’re on the outside looking in. Yes, they have been in good form recently, winning six of their last eight, but they have faced extremely soft competition, with Vancouver, Seattle, Chicago and Arizona accounting for seven of those games. The schedule the rest of the way is less generous, and they’re running out of time to make up ground in the standings.
Per Dom Luszczyszyn’s statistical model at The Athletic, the Vegas Golden Knights have just a 47 percent chance of making the playoffs this season.
—Adam Herman
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