Good News For The Golden Knights Is There's Always A Chance Gary Bettman Rigs The Lottery To Get Them The 1st Pick In The Draft Now
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.For the 2nd game in a row with the season on the line, the Vegas Golden Knights took a lead into the 3rd period. For the 2nd game in a row with the season on the line, the Vegas Golden Knights weren't able to close out that final 20 minutes and ended up going to overtime (shoutout to good ol' American boy Jason Robertson on scoring his 40th of the season to tie the game in the 3rd). For the 2nd game in a row with the season on the line, the Vegas Golden Knights couldn't secure that 2nd point in overtime and then couldn't score a single goal in the shootout.
So for the 2nd game in a row with the season on the line, the team with the highest payroll in the league put it all on the back of Logan Thompson. The goalie who was playing in just his 18th career NHL game last night.
I guess technically they're not eliminated from playoff contention yet. They need to win both of their last 2 remaining games and Dallas would have to lose both of their 2 remaining games in regulation. Then they'd get the tiebreaker over Dallas with more regulation wins. But Dallas has the 'Yotes and the Ducks left on their schedule and all they need is to at least go to overtime in one of those games. So yeah, that does it for the Vegas Golden Knights and their $92 million roster.
The good news for Vegas is that Gary Bettman wants to make sweet, sweet love to the Golden Knights. They are his crown jewel. He'll do whatever he can to keep his sugar baby happy. Whether it's make some ridiculous rules for the expansion draft to make sure they could ass blast the entire league right out of the gates, give them an All Star game, turn a blind eye when the team is clearly stashing healthy players on LTIR so they can go $10 million over the cap. Gary Bettman will do anything for Vegas. So if that means he needs to rig a lottery draft real quick to help them get a top 3 pick in the upcoming draft after missing the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, then so be it.
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Shane Wright already looks pretty good in black and gold anyway.
Ken Andersen. Getty Images.Oh and just some quick clarification here because there's a chance that Buffalo Sabres fans are reallllllly going to hate Jack Eichel if this ends up being the case. The original trade sent Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs, a 2022 1st round pick and a 2023 2nd round pick to Buffalo for Vegas. But those picks were conditional. If the Golden Knights' 2022 pick is in the top 10, then the '22 1st round pick becomes a '23 1st round pick. And then the '23 2nd round pick becomes a '24 2nd round pick. So really all Gary Bettman has to do here is rig the draft lottery enough to give Vegas a top 10 pick in the draft and they keep their pick this year.
I can already see Vegas sliding into the top 10 and the team sliding out of the top 10 being the Flyers.