We’re entering the time of year when the Vegas Golden Knights tend to be a major topic of conversation. January and February make up the majority of trade deadline season in the NHL and, lord knows, those desert pirates have been known to big-game hunt in the past.
That said, there’s a chance we’re not talking about the Knights enough right now. And that’s not because Vegas is clearly scheming on a huge acquisition — though don’t be against it, obviously — but rather owing to the fact the squad is quietly on a months-long roll and just might be the class of the league right now.
After downing the Buffalo Sabres 3-1 on Saturday, the Knights have won eight of their past nine outings. Since losing its fourth, fifth and sixth games of the season in October, Vegas is 24-7-2. Since Nov. 21, the Knights sport a league-best .825 points percentage on a 16-3-1 record. The next best points percentages belong to Los Angeles (.778) and Edmonton (.763), which tells you it’s hard to call any division other than the Pacific the best group in hockey at this point.
If you want to ding Vegas on anything, its underlying numbers — the Knights rank 18th in the NHL in Moneypuck’s expected goals for percentage — are less than sparkling. The Knights also started poorly on the road with just two victories in eight tries, but have now managed to win eight of their past 10 away from home.
Yeah, this team is trucking along.
A huge driver of the momentum is the crease tandem of Adin Hill and first-year Knight Ilya Samsonov. Since Dec. 1, the Knights have a league-best .929 save percentage in all situations. That’s built on Hill’s .922 mark in nine contests and the sparkling .942 SP Samsonov has put up in five outings. Of course, that timeline basically dovetails with the early-December announcement that Hill would be one of Canada’s three goalies for the Four Nations Face-Off and the 28-year-old British Columbia native and 2023 Stanley Cup winner is sure making a push to be the Canadian starter.
By the time that event ends in late February, we’ll basically be two weeks away from the March 7 deadline and if Vegas makes another splash this year, the expectation is it will be for a winger. The Knights and Sharks hooked up last season for the Tomas Hertl blockbuster and perhaps San Jose forward and pending UFA Mikael Granlund — who’s played a lot of wing and centre in his career — would be a fit this winter. Or maybe there’s a call to the New York teams to talk about the Rangers’ Chris Kreider or longtime Islander Brock Nelson.
With Vegas, you never know.
All we can say for sure is, this team has been racking up points like no other, going on eight weeks now. And if they get up to their old deadline tricks again, Vegas will be in the middle of every single contender conversation once more.
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The Fan Hockey Show
Sportsnet’s Matt Marchese and former Los Angeles Kings executive Mike Futa take you around the league on Sportsnet 590 The FAN’s national hockey show, airing live across the country daily from noon-2 p.m. ET.
Weekend Takeaways
• Sticking with the Pacific, the Knights, Kings and Oilers are making the top of the group insanely competitive, but the Ducks are doing what they can to emerge from the bottom of the division, too. With a 4-1 win over Tampa Bay on Sunday, the Orange County crew has won four of its past five outings and is 7-4-0 in its past 11. The Ducks’ most recent four victories came against the aforementioned Bolts, Jets, Devils and Oilers. Not a soft touch in there, so full marks to the young squad that’s showing a little something. The weekend also brought some significant Ducks news in the form of winger Frank Vatrano — who popped two goals in Sunday’s victory — inking a three-year extension with the team and, in the process, removing his name from the list of pending UFAs the likes of Vegas would be eying be ahead of the deadline. So many bottom-feeding NHL squads seem to be stuck in the mud and it’s telling that Anaheim — despite remaining a playoff longshot — wanted to keep the 30-year-old goal-scorer around for the next few years rather than sell him off. Future Ducks’ teams already send their thanks.
• Speaking of the bottom, Detroit is making a now-or-never push to get back in the Eastern Conference playoff chase under new bench boss Todd McLellan. Saturday’s 4-2 triumph in Winnipeg might have been the win of the year for the Red Wings, who’ve suddenly strung together four straight victories and have dropped just one game — McLellan’s first with the squad on Dec. 27 — since making the coaching change.
• Speaking of the Atlantic, that division has become exceptionally bunched — even by, loser-point, salary cap-parity standards — thanks to Detroit’s surge and the small swoon of another team that made a coaching switch, the Boston Bruins. The B’s dropped two games on the weekend to Toronto and the Islanders and have suddenly lost five of six to hit their first real rough patch since Joe Sacco took over behind the bench. Boston currently ranks third in the Atlantic with 45 points and seventh-place Detroit checks in at 38 points. That means five teams — Boston, Tampa, Ottawa, Montreal and Detroit — are separated by just seven points and each of the four squads right behind Boston hold games in hand on the B’s.
The Week Ahead
• We’ll hit the halfway point of the 2024-25 campaign on Thursday night and there’s a must-see contest on the slate with Connor McDavid and the rolling Oilers in Pittsburgh to face Sidney Crosby and a Penguins team that suddenly wants to have something to say about who claims the Eastern Conference wild-card spots.
• After facing Crosby, McDavid will go head-to-head with Connor Bedard in Chicago on Saturday, as the latter has put together a seven-game point streak that could be up to nine by then. That matchup is part of a huge 15-game slate on Saturday, which will also feature frequent playoff combatants Boston and Florida doing battle in Massachusetts, while the Canucks make their annual visit to Toronto.
• The women’s Under-18 World Championship is running all week long in Finland and will wrap on Sunday with the gold medal showdown.
Red and White Power Rankings
1. Toronto Maple Leafs (26-13-2) A four-game winning streak is great, but obviously Leafs fans will be anxious to get an update on defenceman Jake McCabe’s health after he exited Sunday night’s win over Philly with an apparent head injury. Of course, McCabe also missed time in December after taking a puck to the head, so it’s easy to be that much more concerned.
2. Edmonton Oilers (24-12-3) Following Saturday’s 4-2 win over the Kraken, the Oilers have allowed two goals or fewer in six of their past eight outings.
3. Winnipeg Jets (27-12-2) After Saturday’s loss to the Red Wings, the Jets are done with the Eastern Conference for a bit. Winnipeg won’t see an opponent from anywhere but the West until facing the Habs in Montreal on Jan. 28.
4. Vancouver Canucks (18-12-8) Quinn Hughes figures to return to the lineup during this week’s road trip and getting the captain back can’t happen fast enough for the hard-luck Canucks.
5. Calgary Flames (18-14-7) The Flames are about to become road warriors, with eight of their next 10 games away from Southern Alberta.
6. Ottawa Senators (19-17-2) It hasn’t always been pretty — captain Brady Tkachuk called Friday’s 4-0 loss in St. Louis “embarrassing” — but Ottawa can finish a nine-game roadie with a winning record if it can pry out a ‘W’ in Detroit on Tuesday.
7. Montreal Canadiens (18-18-3) Hello, Jakub Dobes. The Czech goalie — who got a huge shootout win in Colorado on Saturday — is the first puck stopper in the franchise’s long history to allow just a single goal through his first two starts in the league.
