Why the Golden Knights will win the Stanley Cup — and why they won’t

By Justin Emerson

Monday, July 27, 2020 | 2 a.m.

The Golden Knights are in the bubble in Edmonton, ready for an exhibition game on Thursday and the start of their round-robin next week.

Then it’s the start of the Round of 16, where the fun truly begins.

Twenty-four teams are included in this year’s Stanley Cup, and each of them has reason to believe they can win the Stanley Cup. What about the Golden Knights?

Let’s look at three reasons why the Golden Knights could win it all, and three reasons why not.

Reason they will: Forward depth

The top line has a scoring wizard (Max Pacioretty), a tremendous two-way center (William Karlsson) and of the best wingers in all of hockey (Mark Stone). The second line has wingers from the team’s Stanley Cup Final run two years ago (Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith). The third line features a former 20-goal scorer (Alex Tuch).

The Golden Knights’ forward group is one of the best in the league. Any team in the league would salivate over having the luxury to put Pacioretty, Karlsson and Stone together on the top line.

The second unit also matches up against any other in hockey. And Tuch’s third line has scary speed. Even the fourth line has its own superlative — it’s a rough-and-tough group Ryan Reaves called “meat grinders” this week.

There’s no real weakness up and down the lineup, which creates mismatches against opposing defenses.

Reason they won’t: Lack of star power on defense

Each Stanley Cup winning team for the last decade has featured at least one player on the roster that was a trip-five finisher for the Norris Trophy entering the year.

Not only do the Golden Knights lack a player who has ever finished in the top five; they lack anyone who has ever received a single Norris vote.

Shea Theodore could be that guy one day. He’s a budding star on the blue line and is surrounded by a solid top four of Nate Schmidt, Alec Martinez and Brayden McNabb, but is that enough?

There’s no Alex Pietrangelo, John Carlson, Kris Letang, Duncan Keith, Drew Doughty or Zdeno Chara — defensemen who have helped power their teams to recent Stanley Cups — here. Maybe they can overcome that — they reached the Cup Final two years ago with a similar defensive core — but it would be bucking recent history.   

Reason they will: Goaltending

 What’s better than one starting goalie? Two, of course.

The Golden Knights have two goalies battle-tested for the playoffs — one with a legacy of postseason success and one who had two tremendous seasons in a row.

 Should Marc-Andre Fleury, a three-time Cup winner, get hurt, Vegas can turn to Robin Lehner, who was a Vezina finalist last season and didn’t disappoint in this year’s encore.

In all likelihood, Fleury will get the first crack at the playoffs. But if he can’t play or if he struggles, the Golden Knights have another option that is more talented than they had in either of their last two postseasons.

Reason they won’t: Strength of competition

The Western Conference is a gauntlet this season. While the Pacific Division may have gotten picked on early in the year, it rounded into form by the end and the Central was always full of monsters.

If there were no upsets, the Golden Knights’ path to the Final would be the Nashville Predators, which have arguably the best defensive pair in the NHL, the Colorado Avalanche, which pulverized Vegas twice this season, and the St. Louis Blues, the defending champions.

That discounts potential matchups with the Oilers and their dynamic duo of top-line fowards or the Stars and their stranglehold defense. Even down the seeding, there’s the Wild, which give the Golden Knights fits, and the Jets, which have perhaps the best goalie in the league in Conor Hellebuyck.

The Golden Knights are unlikely to face any easy matchups. The Golden Knights might be the best team in the west, but the gap between them and the rest of the conference is not great enough to make this a walk to the Final.

Reason they will: Possession numbers

Teams can’t score without shooting, and they can’t shoot without having possession. Few teams have possessed the puck better than the Golden Knights for the last three years.

This season, the Golden Knights lead the NHL in Corsi possession — the ratio of shot attempts taken to the shot attempts allowed at 5-on-5 — at 54.8%. Since DeBoer was hired, that number has gone up to 57.4%. 

Other underlying numbers are just as strong. Vegas leads the league in expected goals percentage (56.1%) and percentage of scoring chances (56.5%). They’re second in high-danger scoring percentage (55.7%).

They’re elite at even strength, quite possibly the best team in the league, and shored up their one weakness from earlier in the year — goaltending.

It’s been the hallmark of the Golden Knights’ success for three seasons: Shoot a lot and don’t let the opponent shoot often. It’s worked for them so far and could very well carry them all the way this year.

Reason they won’t: Special teams

Those 5-on-5 numbers may look nice, but it’s not the same when one team has more players on the ice. In a tournament where a game and even series can hinge on a single goal, gaining the special teams advantage will be paramount.

And that’s where the Golden Knights have struggled, especially on defense. They’ve improved on the power play, ranking 10^th in the league at 21.8 percent since DeBoer was hired on Jan. 15.

The shot and expected-goal numbers back the conversion rate up, putting the Golden Knights at least above-average while they’re up a man.

The penalty kill, however, remains a problem. Vegas has killed just 70.7% of penalties since DeBoer was hired. DeBoer said he didn’t think the penalty kill was as bad as the numbers suggest, and there’s some merit to that.

The Golden Knights allowed only 6.1 expected goals for every 60 minutes short-handed, which is the seventh best in the NHL. The problem has been goaltending where the team’s .750 save percentage is last in the league by more than 50 points.