Why The Vegas Golden Knights Might Miss The Playoffs Next Season

There were two completely different feelings coming out of Thursday's Stanley Cup Finals game. One was the feeling of victory by the Washington Capitals — the 2018 Stanley Cup Champions. The other was the feeling of loss and defeat by the Vegas Golden Knights — the little NHL Expansion team that could but didn't. The Caps will be celebrating for some time while the Golden Knights will be clearing out their lockers, looking back at the Finals series and wondering what went wrong. It's the nature of the beast.

Unfortunately, in a few days, the Golden Knights problems will only be getting bigger. The team will be looking at what to do next and realizing, this was their best shot, a shot they may never get again. In fact, someone with a glass is half empty mentality might suggest the team will be hard-pressed to even make the playoffs next season.

How is this possible? There will be people that look at this team and their vantage point on expansion franchises will completely change. Perhaps that's understandable considering no expansion team has ever done what the Golden Knights did. But, if you examine what's about to happen to this team, you'll quickly realize they are in for a world of hurt, and this set of circumstances that was the 2017-18 season is the farthest thing from likely to ever happen again.

No More Motivated Players With Something To Prove

The Vegas Golden Knights were a fantastic hockey team. Let's not take anything away from that. But, they were built for this season. This club was the only club, out of all 31 NHL teams, to start with a blank slate. They had no bad contracts to move, they had no overpaid players to protect, no no-movement or no-trade clauses. To their credit, they managed the expansion draft rules magnificently.

They grabbed motivated and undervalued players on often lower-end contracts and knew they would play for their NHL careers. Numerous members of the roster had career seasons. Sometimes that was due to being placed higher in a lineup than they were used to, but mostly due to the fact these players had something to prove. When you have this many players on one roster and with chips on their shoulders, the results could be wonderful. It was better than wonderful, it was unbelievable.

These guys no longer have that chip on their shoulder. They didn't win the Stanley Cup, but they sure proved they shouldn't be overlooked. And, now they won't be. Many of these players will receive the biggest contracts of their NHL careers in a few weeks and that's all thanks to this one season.

The formula that created the magic will be gone and it can't be reproduced.

Renewed Contracts

Having talked about these players, it now becomes time for the franchise to pay them what the market value sets. In the summer of 2017, it was all about picking the best of what each of the other NHL teams could afford to lose. Some teams had to give up more than they ever normally would have. The Golden Knights no longer have the luxury of being able to capitalize on that. The only advantage they do have is that any players they sign will not be exposed to a new NHL expansion team in Seattle. That's big, but not so big it relieves the club of any responsibility to make wise choices.

Players like James Neal, William Karlsson, David Perron, Ryan Reaves, Luca Sbisa, and Shea Theodore are all free agents come July 1. There's next to no way the team can keep everyone — and sign free agents — unless many agree to take a discount to stick around. Thirty million dollars in cap space might seem like a lot, but what are the odds that every player wants to return for a discount? Not likely and the team will chew away at that cap space quickly. Should they go for a player like John Tavares, one-third of it will be gone right there.

The money being offered on the open market to many of the current Golden Knights roster will simply be too high to ignore. Many will dart for new teams and the franchise will be tasked with signing good contracts to replace them.

The Vegas Golden Knights will be like every other team. They'll have to overpay, they'll have to let guys go and they'll end up regretting some of the salary dumps the team took last summer from teams looking to shed contracts.

Just How Hard It Is to Get Back There

In the end, everyone knows just how hard it is to win the Stanley Cup. It might be one of the hardest trophies to win. The parity that exists in the NHL is so great, a team can finish bottom-five one year and win their conference the next year. So too, a team that wins the Presidents' Trophy could be a lottery team.

Opponents won't be surprised by the Vegas Golden Knights anymore. No one will look at this team as "the expansion club" and that alone will make things more difficult.