NFL
By: Damon Horton
They Aren’t Called the Sin City Saints
The Golden Knights have had a very successful week; they have made it to the Conference Finals, they have won the award for most ridiculous fine, and now they are the league’s most hated team according to fans.
They are not without talent on the ice, the offseason signing of Mitch Marner and his subsequent playoff explosion, the midseason pickup up Rassmus Andersson, and the continued dominance of Jack Eichel have rightfully placed them among the top teams in the Western Conference, but this run has not been without its headlines. This seems to be a bit of a theme with this (relatively) young franchise. Cap circumvention, fines, and hires of questionable moral objectivity all cloud the team. It is Sin City after all.
Do they deserve it, though? I want to get ahead of myself here and make it clear that the fans do not deserve the ire of the league and their fanbases. For Vegas fans, hockey has become a mainstay in the desert, the continued success of a team that began as a band of misfit players and the relentlessness of a front office that has been in win-now mode since the team’s inception in 2018. I am always going to put the health of the game at the forefront, and make it known that the Knights being good is great for the sport, and subsequently, the NHL.
The brass making the decisions, on the other hand? That could be a totally different story. The history of conduct by the Golden Knights and their front office makes the anger a bit more legitimate than a simple “they hate us cuz’ they ain’t us” mantra. Let’s go back to the beginning of their perceived wrongdoings.
The Mark Stone Loophole
Most people who have followed hockey recently will know about the “Mark Stone” loophole that was recently patched up by the new CBA. In previous years, the LTIR, or Long Term Injured Reserve, was a space in a team’s salary cap that could be reserved in the case of a long-term injury to a player. Multiple times, Mark Stone would go down, and multiple times, he would be miraculously ready by playoff time. It is very much worth noting that in the playoffs, there was no salary cap, allowing the Knights to go and pick up players like Jack Eichel, Ivan Barbashev, Thomas Hertl, and Noah Hanifin at the deadline while Mark Stone was on LTIR. Mark Stone first went down with back surgery in 2023, and then with a lacerated spleen in 2024. Both times, he was deemed 100% right at the onset of Game 1 of the Playoffs.
So were the Knights cheating? Were they using this system before anyone else, and was the NHL complicit in allowing this to go on for all this time? The answer will disappoint you.
The Knights are absolutely not the only team that has abused this system in the time that it was implemented. You can look all the way back to the 2015 Chicago Blackhawks when Patrick Kane broke his clavicle, and then the Blackhawks signed 3 players after he was placed on LTIR. The Blackhawks would then go on to beat the Lightning in the Stanley Cup. In 2020-2021, the Tampa Bay Lightning were $18 million over the cap due to Kucherov and Stamkos going onto LTIR.
They both were ready for Game 1. In 2024, the year that Stone and the Golden Knights really started to become the poster child for salary cap shenanigans, the Knights were only 3rd in the league amongst playoff teams who were over the cap. The Maple Leafs ($14.15m) and Lightning ($10.27m) outpaced the 3rd Knights, going $8.72 over.
The Golden Knights may not be the team that started it, and were far from the worst culprits while the LTIR loophole was in effect, but they are the team that weaponized it, at least in the fans’ eyes.
Something to keep in mind from a fan perspective is that these injuries are very heavily scrutinized by doctors and medical professionals before teams can place a player on LTIR. Just this season, Tyler Seguin tore his ACL in November and wasn’t placed on SELTIR or LTIR until March. Teams will look for any way to gain a competitive advantage, and this seems to be one of those “lucky bounces” that happened to go their way. The Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup in 2023.
This Season
The Golden Knights kicked off their season before it even started by signing Mitch Marner, a Toronto-native that was run out of town by his own fans. Most unethical fanbase article soon? Just kidding. The Marner signing has been a feel-good story of redemption for a guy who was labeled as one who “can’t get it done on the big stage.” Boy, has he. He currently has 18 points in 12 games with Vegas, a huge reason for them making it as far as they have.
This honeymoon did not last forever, though. Finding themselves in deep goalie trouble, they signed Carter Hart, to the dismay of many hockey fans. This was due to his involvement in the 2018 Hockey Canada scandal, in which he was one of the 5 players that was implicated in the assault of a woman after winning Gold in the IIHF World Juniors. You can read more about it here. This prompted the Knights to release a statement after signing him, something that is incredibly rare for a big free-agent signing, don’t you think?
I will not spend time disseminating the details of this case, as all of the information has been released, and you can draw your own conclusions. What I will say, however, is that to call this a distraction would be an understatement. Fans were bringing signs to games, the locker room was distracted, and the Knights, as well as Hart, were off to a rocky start. Hart and the Golden Knights went 4-3-3 in his first 10 games with the team. The hiring of locker room distractions for the sake of adding skill to your team is a moral quandary that has plagued teams across the world of sports. This doesn’t totally indict the Knights as the bona fide evil empire, but it sure does add to the pile, doesn’t it?
The Bruce Cassidy Situation
Bruce Cassidy, the most highly sought-after head coach in the coaching market heading into the offseason, has now been denied not one, but two times when teams have requested interviews with the Stanley Cup-winning bench boss. Before we dive too deep into the discourse, let’s talk a bit about coaching rights in the NHL.
In the National Hockey League, when a coach is fired, they are still to be paid the entirety of their salary, and the team that “fired” them owns their negotiating rights until their contract is over. It is more productive to think about it less as “firing” and more as “relieving them of their duties.” The team retains the rights of the coach, and anyone who wants to interview said coach must ask the team’s permission to interview them. The Vegas Golden Knights, after firing Cassidy, asked permission from the Philadelphia Flyers to interview John Tortorella. The Flyers permitted them.
Recently, the Edmonton Oilers asked for permission to interview Bruce Cassidy in the wake of their firing of back-to-back Western Conference Champion Chuck Knoblauch. The Golden Knights declined. Understandable, seeing as how the Oilers are division rivals. The Philadelphia Flyers also requested to interview Cassidy, to which the Knights declined once again. This one drew many more eyes, and rightfully so. Why are the Knights declining not just rivals, but teams that not only are not in their division or conference, but teams that gave them the grace to hire a coach that has taken them to the Western Conference Finals on short notice. What is really going on here? Is this bad business on the Golden Knights’ part? Is this vengeance for something Cassidy said or did during the end of his stint as head coach in Vegas?
Bruce Cassidy will undoubtedly draw a lot of attention throughout the offseason as a recent Stanley Cup winner with a 178-99-43 record with the Knights. The fact that he is still not being allowed to interview has been excused by the Golden Knights front office as “being focused on winning a Stanley Cup.”
They must really be focused, so much so that John Tortorella and the rest of the team’s antics have now cost them a 2026 2nd Round Pick and resulted in a $100,000 fine being levied against Torts in the process. The NHL had allegedly warned the club multiple times about this kind of thing, resulting in the very harsh penalty. The rub here, and especially for me as a journalist, is that this move was just disrespectful to the media members who work diligently, travel away from their families, and spend many sleepless nights reporting on the team.
John Tortorella will undoubtedly be handed a media job on a silver platter from ESPN or TBS. Isn’t it kind of ironic that he is spitting in their faces by no-showing? And after a win, no less. One must wonder what kind of respect he will get amongst his fellow media members in the future when he goes back to his cushy analyst job.
I am completely unsure as to why they would pull a stunt like this. The claims that the team had to board some kind of team plane at whatever airport is asinine and made up by fans trying to excuse unprofessional behavior.
Media availability is something that is written into the CBA for the players and coaches, and I am just surprised at the entire thing. A very curious decision to make for a head coach that has no future contract or obligation to this team past their current playoff run. A simple “I’m just here so I don’t get fined” would have worked out much better for them, in my opinion.
The Verdict, If There Even Is One
Are the Knights morally bankrupt? Not any more than any other team. The Knights have enjoyed great success since they joined the league and have done so while obeying, not abusing, many of the rules and systems put in place by the NHL.
The mere thought that the Golden Knights are somehow the most evil team in the NHL kind of falls flat when you consider that the Chicago Blackhawks had a legitimate sexual assault cover-up just a few years ago, complete with a full 107-page report that you can read here in its entirety.
The idea that there is a “moral” or “ethical” NHL organization is pretty crazy to consider. Even my own Dallas Stars have monopolized youth hockey in Texas, making it impossible for independent leagues or rinks to function in the state. The entire PWHL, every single team, is owned by the Mark Walter Group, a private equity firm that also owns the lauded Los Angeles Dodgers. These teams are run by very rich people, people who care about one thing. Money. They earn money by winning, and if it takes some questionable actions to secure an extra playoff series-worth of ticket revenue, or a growth of season ticket holder profits, you can bet every single time that they will jump at that opportunity.
The winning ways of this club only give credence to fans that are looking for a reason to hate them, and that’s good for hockey, isn’t it? The sport is built on rivalries. Passion is forged in the fires of hatred, the throes of defeat, and the triumph of victory. The league has a new heel, and the Golden Knights are playing the part exceptionally well. Wild vs Jets. Flyers vs Penguins. Oilers vs Flames. Stars vs Colorado. And now? Vegas vs… Everybody?
Vegas currently owns a 1-0 series lead against the Avalanche, stealing the first game of the series in Denver. If the Knights can topple the Presidents’ Trophy winners, the hatred from the league will only grow. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
