It was back in September when I was looking at predictions for the upcoming NHL season. Of course, I wanted to read perspectives on how my beloved Chicago Blackhawks would fare for the upcoming 2017-2018 Season. After that, there was another team which I was really intrigued about.
That team was the expansion Vegas Golden Knights. And I was intrigued about this team for the reasons that are not typical, I wanted to see how bad the outlook for this first-year team was. Sure enough, from what I had been reading, it seemed pretty clear that the Golden Knights were going to struggle quite a lot in their first season, with many predictions putting the expansion Knights finishing 8th in the Pacific Division and easily in the bottom of the league.
I could see total reasoning into that, so I actually decided to put notifications from my ESPN app on my phone to notify me of scores of the Golden Knights games, just because I wanted to see how bad this team was going to finish up. Quickly, I became very surprised with something about this team. And that is they started winning a lot of games, and then, they started winning even more games. All of the sudden, I was hyped about this team because they started to prove that they are not the typical expansion team, and were uncommon from the rest of them.
Despite setting many records for an expansion team, I still did not believe that the Golden Knights were for real heading into the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs. In fact, I believed that there would be no way this team would make it past the first round of the playoffs. I stuck firmly to my belief on that when the opponent for the Knights inaugural playoff series would be the Los Angeles Kings, who have experienced players and have won two Stanley Cups in the decade. Again, the expansion Golden Knights shocked me and swept the powerful Kings. After that, I believed the sky was the limit for the first year team, and I truly felt that the Golden Knights had it in them to win the Stanley Cup.
All the way, I decided to root for this team just for the sake to see a first year team make even more history and win a championship, and I did believe that it was going to happen. Once the Knights eliminated the Winnipeg Jets to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals, I knew that there would be no stopping this team. Unfortunately, the Washington Capitals showed that they were just too much for a first year team, and handled the Golden Knights easily. Vegas, I know you are disappointed that you didn't get to make history by winning the Cup, but you have nothing to be disappointed about. Myself and other hockey fans around the globe did not expect anything out of you. So you should be very proud, but not satisfied for coming as far as you did this year. Heading forward, there will be higher expectations from you. All you have to do is live up to those expectations, and find ways to become even more competitive than you were last year. I believe you have the power in you to become a dominant force in the NHL for a long time, so keep fighting and never be completely satisfied with how your season ended. I am a believer in this team heading forward, and I know they will show it on the rink.
