The Vegas Golden Knights have been eliminated from the playoffs

PUBLICATION

C. Ritchie
April 28, 2022 (7:30)

SHARE THIS STORY

For the first time in franchise history, the Vegas Golden Knights will miss the Stanley Cup playoffs. It is an ironic turn of events for a team that did everything they could to skirt the rules in order to improve their team.

Vegas traded away Marc-Andre Fleury in the offseason to create cap room in order to re-sign some of their other core pieces. It turns out that was a mistake as Robin Lehner could not stay healthy or be the difference maker the team needed. His goals against average increased from 2.29 last season to 2.83 this season. Add on top of that, a middling save percentage of only .907. Lehner had one of his worst statistical seasons of his career and he played in Buffalo.

Vegas was already dealing with Salary Cap issues when they brought in Jack Eichel. They tried to circumvent the cap using LTIR but that meant having some of their star players in the press box to become cap compliant. The Golden Knights currently have $10.9 million in LTIR. When Vegas needed Jack Eichel the most, in the past 6 games he had 0 goals, 1 assist, was -5, and went 0 for 3 in the shootout.

The honest truth is the Golden Knights folded under the pressure when their season was on the line. In must win games the Golden Knights went to three straight shootouts, going scoreless in all three. Their expensive star players couldn't even score one shootout goal. 17 straight shootout misses. The only person you should feel bad for is Logan Thompson. The third string goaltender did all he could to save his team's season.

After Wednesday's loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, coach Pete DeBoer spoke to the media.

I'm surprised. I'm disappointed. I'm at the front of the line for responsibility. There's a lot of expectations on this team. It's not an easy thing and it doesn't feel good for anybody right now.

Max Pacioretty was candid after the game and knows there are changes coming this offseason.

There's obviously going to be a lot of time for reflection. A lot of decisions will be at this point kind of out of the players' control but you got to expect when a team underperforms the way we have this year, all bets are off.

There was a multitude of reasons why this season went wrong from management decisions, to coaching decisions, a lot of injuries, but most of all their star players underperformed when it mattered most. That's something that won't be easy to fix going into next season. Maybe they should trade for a shootout specialist.