Pierre-Edouard Bellemare’s first trip to Las Vegas was a colossal bust. In 2013, the French-born winger’s Skellefteå AIK won the Swedish Hockey League championship, and the team splurged with a weeklong trip to Vegas. Upon arriving at the airport, Bellemare was told that his passport—which didn’t have a necessary biometric chip—was no good. So instead, he spent the week holed up at his mother’s house in France. Naturally, it rained every day. His teammates showed little mercy, texting him panoramic photos of their helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon and Snapchatting selfies from backstage at an Avicii show. Bellemare sulked—and renewed his passport, with an expiration of 2023. That’s good, his mother, Frederique, told him, because it means one day you can live in the United States—and live there for a while. “I didn’t say shut up,” Bellemare says now. “But I was thinking, ‘This is bulls---.’” After all, the NHL was little more than a pipe dream for the 28-year-old—even his own coaches on the French national team told him to give up on the idea. “You’ll see,” Frederique said at the time. “One day we will be laughing about this.” A year later, Bellemare helped lead Skellefteå to a second straight title and signed as a free agent with the Flyers. Now the left winger is an alternate captain for the Golden Knights in their wildly successful inaugural season. “So now I’m not just traveling to Vegas, I own a house in Vegas,” he says. “I have
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a wife and child here. I sometimes have to think, ‘How did my career end up like this?’” Nearly every teammate can relate. Center William Karlsson was discarded by two teams in his first three seasons. Goalie MarcAndre Fleury was dumped by the Penguins, for whom he won 375 games (and three Stanley Cups) over 13 seasons. A tad short for scouts’ liking, 5-foot-9 center Jonathan Marchessault toiled with two clubs before breaking out with 30 goals for the Panthers last season. Defenseman Nate Schmidt spent a chunk of last season sitting in the press box as the Capitals’ seventh defenseman. “The whole roster is full of guys whose teams said ‘We don’t want you’ or ‘We want other players more,’” says enforcer Ryan Reaves, who joined the Knights at the deadline from Pittsburgh. “It’s a bunch of guys who are hungry. And they all can play.” WHEN THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS opened the season at 200-1 odds to win the Stanley Cup (the longest in the NHL), few people blinked. After all, of the 64 expansion teams in the four major U.S. sports leagues since 1960, none had debuted with a winning season— until now. Not only did the Knights finish with a .655 point percentage, they placed first in the Pacific Division and cruised into the second round of the playoffs—the first NHL team to make the postseason in its inaugural season since the Oilers and Whalers merged from the WHA in 1979-80, when just five of the league’s 21 teams didn’t make the playoffs. Cynics will point out that Vegas enjoyed a more generous expansion format than the NHL has ever granted before, as teams could protect fewer players than in the past. That’s true, but the Knights also gamed the system: Vegas GM George McPhee orchestrated 10 official trades ahead of the draft, collecting 10 picks and six additional players on top of his 30 draftees. “A lot of teams got in their own heads,” a Western Conference GM says. “In reality, you just need to suck it up and lose one player. But a lot of teams wanted to protect certain assets and got fancy making side deals, and it kind of nipped them in the butt.” The Knights quickly differentiated themselves with their balance; they regularly roll
out four lines, with no regard for matchups. Consider: Karlsson led Vegas forwards in time on ice (18:43 per game) in the regular season, but that ranked just 55th among forwards across the NHL. Reilly Smith was the shift leader at 22.2 per game, ranking just 120th leaguewide. “Well, we really didn’t have a choice,” McPhee says. “We don’t have the elite players that other teams have. We thought that perhaps if our third and fourth lines were better than other clubs’ third and fourth lines, that could be a way to even things out.” The Knights’ swarming forecheck can pin opponents for long stretches. They have a wealth of capable defenders after taking 13 in the expansion draft; none profiles as a traditional No. 1, but none is overtaxed either. Then there’s Fleury, a stud goalie who posted career bests in save percentage (.927) and GAA (2.24) in his age-33 season. Coach Gerard Gallant is a fitting leader for this ragtag bunch. He became somewhat of a meme last season when he was fired by the Panthers at a road game. Cameras captured him outside Raleigh’s PNC Arena waiting for a taxi. Since moving to Vegas, Gallant has downloaded Uber but maintained his simplicity. His go-to postgame meal is a bologna sandwich. His practices
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