2017–18 Vegas Golden Knights season
Inaugural season; strongest debut for an expansion team in North American sports history / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 2017–18 Vegas Golden Knights season was the inaugural season for the Vegas Golden Knights. They played their home games at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada.
2017–18 Vegas Golden Knights | |
---|---|
Western Conference champions | |
Pacific Division champions | |
Division | 1st Pacific |
Conference | 3rd Western |
2017–18 record | 51–24–7 |
Home record | 29–10–2 |
Road record | 22–14–5 |
Goals for | 272 |
Goals against | 228 |
Team information | |
General manager | George McPhee |
Coach | Gerard Gallant |
Captain | Vacant |
Alternate captains | Pierre-Edouard Bellemare Deryk Engelland James Neal David Perron Luca Sbisa Reilly Smith |
Arena | T-Mobile Arena |
Average attendance | 18,042[1] |
Minor league affiliate(s) | Chicago Wolves (AHL) Quad City Mallards (ECHL) |
Team leaders | |
Goals | William Karlsson (43) |
Assists | David Perron (50) |
Points | William Karlsson (78) |
Penalty minutes | Colin Miller (53) |
Plus/minus | William Karlsson (+49) |
Wins | Marc-Andre Fleury (29) |
Goals against average | Oscar Dansk (1.78) |
The Golden Knights enjoyed the strongest debut season for an expansion team in North American professional sports history. On February 1, 2018, they broke the record for most wins by an expansion team in their first season when they earned their 34th win of the season.[2] On February 21, they broke the record for most points by an expansion team in their inaugural season when they got their 84th point of the season.[3] Then on March 26, they became the first team to make the playoffs in their inaugural season in the league since the Edmonton Oilers and Hartford Whalers in the 1979–80 season.[4] Following that achievement, on March 31, 2018, with a 3–2 victory over the San Jose Sharks, the Knights became the first modern-era expansion team from any of the four major sports and the first NHL team since the 1926–27 New York Rangers to win their division in their inaugural season (excluding the 1967–68 Philadelphia Flyers, as all teams in the West Division that year were expansion teams).[5] The Golden Knights finished the regular season with a .665 points percentage; prior to 2018 the only examples of first year expansion teams joining any of the North American major professional sports leagues after their respective league's first decade and finishing with a winning/points percentage of .500 or better were teams that had joined from another league.
Earning a playoff berth in their first season, the Golden Knights eliminated the Los Angeles Kings in four straight games during the first round, becoming the first team in NHL history to sweep their first playoff series in their inaugural season.[6] They later defeated the San Jose Sharks in the second round in six games and advanced to the Western Conference Finals.[7] There they defeated the Winnipeg Jets in five games to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season where they faced the Washington Capitals,[8] and lost in five games.