Knights on Ice — 2020, the Year of the Blur

Prior to this year when you heard “twenty-twenty,” your first inclination was probably that it referred to someone’s good vision and ability to see clearly. Now when you hear 2020, lots of thoughts immediately come to mind and they are, for the most part, not pleasant.

For Vegas Golden Knights fans, the year 2020 was upside down long before COVID-19 arrived from China. On Jan. 15, 2020, Gerard Gallant was fired as the head coach, along with his assistant Mike Kelly. Yes, the team had just lost three games in a row at home, which had never happened before, then proceeded to lose a fourth in Buffalo on the first of their eight-game road trip. The VGK fan base was in an uproar — especially when they were told that the only head coach they’d ever known was being replaced by their arch enemy, Peter DeBoer, former head coach of the San Jose Sharks.

Welcome to 2020! But wait; as we all know, it got crazier.

The management of the VGK is a wise and knowledgeable group, not only about hockey, but about the public-relations side of the business. They knew that firing Gallant wouldn’t sit well with the fanbase. Even with the four-game losing streak, Vegas was still in a playoff spot and just 3 points behind Arizona at the top of the Pacific Division. The backlash was as expected. DeBoer was going to have to chop a lot of wood to soften his acceptance in Las Vegas.

Well, DeBoer passed with flying colors, going 15-5-2 since replacing Gallant, and the VGK were sitting on top of the Pacific Division when COVID-19 shut down the Knights, the NHL, and the rest of the country. 

So here we sit on June 17, 2020, and as crazy as this seems, the VGK haven’t played a game in 99 days.

But there’s hope!

There have been unorganized workouts at City National Arena for a few VGK players during Phase 2 of the NHL plan to resume the 2019-2020 season. The projected date for the start of training camp and Phase 3 is July 10, 2020.

This is where, in my opinion, the VGK have a huge advantage over the other 23 teams that will eventually play for the Stanley Cup. Remember, DeBoer assumed the team 49 games into the season. He had no training camp to implement his system and pretty much had to put it in place piece by piece, game by game. He’ll now have three weeks of training camp and two exhibition games with a completely healthy squad (minus Cody Glass). This current injury-free team is better than the 2017-18 team that went to the Stanley Cup Final.

Not to mention that the VGK now have two starting goaltenders in Fleury and Lehner. In Lehner’s three games as a VGK, he’s undefeated with a save percentage of .940. We all know what the Flower is capable of. In all sports, for the most part, defense wins championships. In hockey, goaltending wins Stanley Cups. The VGK now have a legitimate backup plan and we know DeBoer doesn’t have favorites. He plays who he feels gives his team the best chance to win. With Gallant, there was always the thought he had favorites who played no matter what. I will not add a specific player’s name here, but if you followed the team closely, you know.

The VGK now have two lines that are, for all intents and purposes, the top two lines on any of the remaining 24 teams. Add in Alex Tuch’s return (if he regains his form) and the bottom two lines aren’t only potent, but dangerous.

Now to the run to the Stanley Cup, which will look a little blurry at first. This year, 24 teams qualify, instead of the normal 18. With the 189 games that weren’t played to complete the 2019-2020 season, the NHL, along with 29 of the 31 teams, agreed to the unusual format.

The 12 qualifying teams from the Eastern and Western conferences were determined by points percentage as of the shutdown date. Seven teams didn’t qualify.

The format was determined in meetings of the Return to Play Committee, which included executives from the NHL and NHL Players’ Association and five players: Ottawa Senators defenseman Ron Hainsey, Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid, Winnipeg Jets center Mark Scheifele, Toronto Maple Leafs center John Tavares, and Philadelphia Flyers forward James van Riemsdyk.

Games in the eight best-of-5 play-in series will go on with playoff overtime rules. These series will be played by all teams, except for the top four teams in both the East and West.

The top four teams will play three-game round-robin games to determine the seeding in Round 2 of the 2020 playoffs. The games will be played with regular-season overtime and shootout rules and ties in the standings broken by regular-season points percentage.

The four teams in the West are St. Louis, Colorado, Vegas, and Dallas. They’ll play three games to determine their ranking in who plays whom from Round 1 and the best-of-5 series between the other 16 teams.

The four teams in the East are: Boston, Tampa Bay, Washington, Philadelphia.

After the qualifiers, the conference-based playoffs will continue. Each of the winners of the best-of-5 series will advance to face one of the round-robin teams. All remaining series will be best-of-7 and will be determined by seeding. Additionally, the playoffs will be re-seeded after every round, instead of the traditional bracket format the NHL has used for many years.

Just so we don’t return to the normalcy of playoff hockey, given that 2020 has been crazy to say the least, all 12 teams from each conference will play in the same “hub city” as of this date. It appears the Western teams will play in an Eastern Conference city and vice versa. Las Vegas appears to be the front runner as the host city for the Eastern teams. The actual hub cities will be named by June 22.

There is a small glimmer of hope for Vegas. Commissioner Gary Bettman told NBCSN, “There is a slim possibility the final three series can be played in the home arenas of the teams that reach those rounds, but that would require a substantial change in the outlook of the pandemic.” It’s most likely that all games will be played in the hub cities without fans allowed in. Sorry, guys; I know how painful it is to consider not being in attendance for these games.

I’m hopeful that as a credentialed media member, I may be eligible to attend these quarantined games and bring you some additional insights to a game that TV just doesn’t seem to cover.

Commissioner Bettman said the NHL believes the qualifiers and first two rounds of the playoffs can be completed in a little more than a month.

The Stanley Cup will most likely not be awarded till the fall, which then poses another problem. How much time until you begin the 2020-2021 season and do you play all 82 games?

The ramifications of 2020 will live on for many years. Just 24 years ago in New York City, on June 14, 1994, when the New York Rangers won their Stanley Cup, announcer Sam Rosen said as the final buzzer sounded in Game 7, “This one will last a lifetime.”

I’m afraid the same can and will be said for 2020, and just not concerning hockey.

Stay safe, my friends. It’s been a while since I’ve communicated with you. It feels good to be back with you all.

Your comments and opinions are welcome here at Las Vegas Advisor or you can contact me at [email protected] or on my Facebook page or the Facebook page of Vegas Hockey Guy.