4. Las Vegas Golden Knights
If there's a team that can move back into the top three teams in the Pacific, it's the Golden Knights. At one point an unstoppable train in the Pacific, a number of things have swung the pendulum of success away from the Knights in terms of team success. Having to pay the piper when it came time to let some guys go because they didn't have the cap space for them, part of the reason for that is their pursuit of, and oftentimes success at obtaining, top free agents or trade targets. They've been able to either sign or trade for Jack Eichel, Alex Pietrangelo, Noah Hanifin, and Tomas Hertl. However, over time this has depleted the prospect and draft pools of the Knights so they have less bullets in the chamber to replenish the players they inevitably lose. Also, in order to bring in these guys, they've had to say goodbye to useful players like Reilly Smith, Marc Andre-Fleury, Nate Schmidt, Max Pacioretty, and the most devastating loss of all - Jonathan Marchessault. The guy scored 42 goals from them last year and they didn't even offer him a contract.
It is largely due to Marchessault's loss that I have predicted the Knights to be outside of the top three in the Pacific this season. How do you replace a 40 goal scorer? It's pretty tough individually, and with the Knights hugging the cap almost since they have been in the league, it's even tough to do by committee. Until they can draft a player on par with Marchessault and get some cheap years out of him, I predict the GKs will be a middling team the way they are now. Good luck doing that though seeing as how the GKs don't have a first round pick until 2027. Losing Chandler Stephenson as well doesn't help either, although they can compensate for that with a full season of Tomas Hertl, who they rescued from the doldrums of San Jose. The closest thing on the roster we have for Marchessault, however, is Ivan Barbashev, and while Barbashev is a solid enough player, having won two Cups - one with St. Louis and one with Vegas - he's only cracked the 20 goal mark once in his previous nine seasons. Worth noting that he got close last year with 19.
The one bright spot for the GKs? William Karlsson, one of the original misfits received in the expansion draft, appears to have rediscovered his scoring touch again. In the GKs first two seasons he had scoring totals of 42 then 23 goals, then he fell off the map completely until last season when he put up 30. Other than those aforementioned players, the GKs top six is rounded out by Pavel Dorofeyev, who scored an anemic 13 goals last season, but in his defense he's only 23 and just because a full time NHLer last season, and even then he only played a modest 47 games. If he can get somewhere close to 82 could he hit 20 goals? Maybe. Finishing up the top six if Victor Olofsson, plucked from the bargain bin after putting up less than 10 goals with Buffalo last season. However, in six seasons on a lousy Sabres team he did have three seasons of 20 goals. If he's playing on an upgraded Vegas team, he just might get back that scoring touch - at the very least a player worth rolling the dice on.
As far as the bottom six? Alex Holtz is a worthy addition from the Devils, putting up 16 goals and 28 points last season, albeit with a -16, but only 22 years old. Nicholas Roy is the other winger on the third line, putting up 13-28-41 and a +8 in 70 games. They were originally supposed to be centered by Hertl, but William Karlsson's injury may put a kibosh on that. The fourth line consists of Brett Howden at center and Keegan Kolesar on the left side, both capable of 18-20 points which is decent for fourth liners. The remaining winger is Zack Aston-Reese, a castoff from multiple teams who.......is there. That's about as insightful as I can get on that guy.
On D we have a pretty good top pairing of Theodore-Pietrangelo, who put up a combined 70+ points last season, perhaps second only to Hughes-Hronek in Vancouver. After the trade from Calgary Hanifin put up 12 points in 19 games, a good omen for a full season in a Knight's uniform. His partner is Nicholas Hague, a 15-20 point producer who's usually good for some good defensive play with perhaps an aberration of last season when he finished at -5. Brayden McNabb rounds out an impressive left D for the third pairing with 26 points last season, partnered with Zach Whitecloud, who, like Hague, is good for 15-20 points and is usually good defensively but finished last season -3. Hague and Whitecloud will have to clean up their defensive play if Vegas is to have any success.
In goal is where the Knights have experienced another big loss, which leads me to believe the Knights may be one and done as far as Cup wins for a franchise. Anyway, while Adin HIll is still there as a fine first option between the pipes, his solid tandem partner from last season, Logan Thompson, departed for Washington and signed there for less than $800K. To replace Thompson the GKs took a step down by signing the failed Ilya Samsonov for over $1,000,000 more than what Thompson signed for in Washington. Samsonov was a disaster for the Leafs last season. They would've been better off leaving Samsonov for another team and re-upping Thompson. Now they're paying more for an inferior goaltender - talk about a terrible use of cap space.
The downgrade in goal and the huge loss of Marchessault are the main reasons why I'm picking Vegas for nothing more than the fringes of the playoff picture. They were beaten in the first round by Dallas in the last playoffs, and I would wager that will become the new normal in Vegas rather than a one time thing.