Knights have dominated division foes, but can that continue?
Bruce Cassidy wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Golden Knights coach is new to the Pacific Division and the Western Conference as a whole with his previous stops coming in Washington and Boston. He’s seen many of his new team’s rivals before, but only twice a year.
That means Cassidy was happy with how the Knights schedule began. Three of the first four games were in the division, a stretch that wraps up with Tuesday’s date with Calgary. Cassidy said he’d play every team in the Pacific “right away” if he could to see where his team stood.
The Knights are passing the test so far.
They’re already 2-0 in the Pacific with road wins in Los Angeles and Seattle. A third win away from home would be an incredible start coming off the team’s fourth-place finish last year, its worst ever.
“It’s good to get those division games in (early),” defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “It gets the juices going. They’re four-point games. They’re just as important as if they were at the end of the year.”
The Pacific has long been the Knights’ playground.
They’re a combined 84-26-11 in the regular season against the seven teams that currently make up their division, a 121-point pace over 82 games. That’s one point fewer than Florida earned last year when winning the Presidents’ Trophy.
Even when the Knights struggle they can still count on their division to pick them up. They were 16-7-3 against the Pacific last season for a .673 points percentage. They were 27-24-5 against everyone else (.527 points percentage).
The Knights’ stellar division record was one reason they stayed in the hunt for so long before ultimately finishing five points shy of the Kings for the Pacific’s third and final guaranteed playoff spot. They were also three points behind Nashville in the wild-card chase.
The Knights are expecting another close race this year, so any edge helps.
“It’s going to be a dogfight,” McNabb said. “We know we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
The Knights are bracing for more of a battle because many teams in the Pacific spent the offseason adding to their teams.
Division-winner Calgary lost two-thirds of its top line in left wing Johnny Gaudreau (free agency) and right wing Matthew Tkachuk (trade), but reloaded by bringing in center Nazem Kadri, left wing Jonathan Huberdeau and defenseman McKenzie Weegar.
Second-place Edmonton re-signed goal scorer (and longtime Knights nemesis) Evander Kane and acquired a new starting goal scorer in Jack Campbell. Los Angeles made an offseason splash by getting left wing Kevin Fiala from Minnesota.
Even some non-playoff teams, like Anaheim, Seattle and Vancouver, made moves in the hopes of taking a step forward this year.
Despite that, the Knights have had no issue taking points from their division opponents so far. Whether that remains the case is the question.
They were dominant against the Pacific last year and still missed the playoffs. They may need to maintain that pace in the face of increased competition to get back in.
“It’s going to be tough,” center William Karlsson said. “There’s a lot of good teams in the Pacific. You got to be ready to start collecting the points, you know?”
Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.
