Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Golden Knights not separating from playoff pack despite hot stretch

Vegas Golden Knights vs Calgary Flames

Christopher DeVargas

Calgary right wing Garnet Hathaway (21) maneuvers around Golden Knight center Ryan Carpenter (40) in the second period of their game at T-Mobile Arena, Fri. Nov. 23, 2018.

The Golden Knights have been playing their best hockey of the season, winning nine of their last 11 games, and looking a lot like last year’s Pacific Division and Western Conference champions.

The problem for the Golden Knights is that all the teams they’re chasing are on similar hot stretches.

The Calgary Flames, San Jose Sharks, Anaheim Ducks and Edmonton Oilers are a combined 28-10-2 in their last 10 games each, and it leaves Vegas clinging to the second wild card spot, the last team in if the playoffs started today.

“I think you looked at it a couple weeks ago, or three weeks ago and the Pacific Division wasn’t looking too good, and now they can’t lose, it seems,” coach Gerard Gallant said.

The top three teams in each division qualify for the playoffs, as well as the top two wild card qualifiers in each conference. The Flames, Sharks and Ducks are in the Pacific’s playoff spots, and the Oilers have the top wild card spot.

The Ducks are perhaps the most perplexing team. They and the Sharks each have 15-11-5 records, meaning they’ve lost nearly as much as they’ve won, but the Ducks have a minus-10 goal differential, and three of their wins have come via shootout.

Vegas has more wins (18-14-1) and a better goal differential (plus-6) than the Ducks, Sharks and Oilers.

“It seems like everyone else has been winning too in the Pacific,” forward Ryan Carpenter said. “You can’t really control it.”

What’s becoming increasingly clear is that Calgary will be a problem for the Golden Knights’ hopes of a division repeat. The Flames started the season a modest 5-5-1, but have gone 15-5-1 since, including a torrid 10-2-1 since Nov. 17. The Golden Knights play the Flames two more times this season: in Calgary on March 6 and at home four days later.

A lot can change over the season’s final four months, but the Flames project to have a division-best 108 points at the end of the year, followed by the Ducks and Sharks at 97 points each. The Minnesota Wild (36 points in 31 games) and Dallas Stars (35 points in 32 games) are right on Vegas' tail, and have at least one game in hand.

To get into one of the Pacific’s playoff spots at that pace, the Golden Knights would need 61 points over their next 49 games, the equivalent of a 30-18-1 record.

It’s not impossible, and the way the team is playing it’s not even out of the question. Perhaps the rest of the Pacific comes back down to earth, but the divisional play is just further proof that the Golden Knights need to get going if they want to be playing hockey this summer.

“Fortunately for us we’re winning, we’re playing well and we’re right in the thick of things,” Gallant said. “There’s really nobody out of it in the Pacific Division — everybody’s playing pretty well.”

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy