RALEIGH, N.C. — The faces of the Vegas Golden Knights franchise have changed over the past nine years. The heartbeat hasn’t.
Tuesday night at the Lenovo Center, they stormed back from an early deficit to win a 5-4 thriller over the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. After a bleak start, the “Golden Misfits” who helped build the franchise delivered for one of the biggest wins in its history.
Shea Theodore was brilliant, with a goal and two assists. William Karlsson was clutch, scoring to deliver Vegas its first lead midway through the second period. Brayden McNabb had the single most productive game of his 14-year NHL career.
They are the only remaining players in the Vegas lineup from the 2017 expansion draft, and nine years later, they’re still the team’s bedrock.
“They mean everything,” Golden Knights forward Brett Howden said. “They’re the ones who built this team from the ground up. They built a culture here, starting from the top down, but those guys were here from the start, and they lead the way.”
In an organization known for its willingness to make changes, there’s a reason these players have stuck around for nearly a decade. They’re adaptable and low-maintenance. Above all, they’re talented and know how to win.
As important as they were in Game 1, helping Vegas become the first road team to win Game 1 of the Cup Final after trailing by multiple goals, their influence on the franchise goes far beyond that. The five Pacific Division titles, five trips to the Western Conference finals, three appearances in the Cup Final, and the 2023 championship. None of that happens without the magical inaugural season in 2017-18, largely fueled by them.
For years, the Golden Knights have operated with a win-now mindset as aggressive as the NHL has ever seen, but that wasn’t always the plan. When then-general manager George McPhee built the team through the expansion draft, it was with an eye on the distant future. He used side deals and took on bloated contracts in exchange for a dozen extra draft picks, many of which were first-rounders.
The thought was they might be surprisingly competitive at first, but the real window to win was down the road. The players had other plans.
Karlsson was a fourth-line player in Columbus who had never reached double-digit goals in a season. He transformed into a rock star in Vegas, scored 43 goals in 2017-18, and seven more in the playoffs.
Theodore was a highly touted prospect in Anaheim, but wasn’t a full-time NHL player yet. The Ducks thought it wise to trade him to Vegas to avoid losing Josh Manson and Sami Vatanen, who were unprotected in the expansion draft. Theodore has developed into one of the premier defensemen, receiving Norris Trophy votes three different times.
McNabb was one of the four players to attend the live expansion draft. He was the young pup at the time, taking the stage at T-Mobile Arena that night with veterans Marc-Andre Fleury, Deryk Engelland and Jason Garrison. He was an immediate leader on the blue line and has served as an anchor ever since.
They shocked the world, winning the Pacific Division on their way to the Stanley Cup Final, where they fell just short at the hands of Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.
It changed the entire trajectory of the franchise. McPhee and his successor, Kelly McCrimmon, shifted gears entirely. They traded away their stockpile of future assets to acquire stars in their prime.
“They founded the core of all of this,” said forward Keegan Kolesar, who also joined the organization on the night of the expansion draft but played the first three seasons in the American Hockey League. “They are the foundation of this team, and guys look upon them for a lot, and rely on them for big moments in games, and they seem to keep on delivering for us, which is awesome.”
When Kolesar said that after the morning skate ahead of Tuesday’s Game 1, he had no idea just how right he would be. Theodore, Karlsson and McNabb were sensational, factoring into all five Vegas goals.
The “Golden Misfits” moniker, started in 2017 by then-Vegas forward James Neal, has stuck with the players ever since. It was, and still is, a perfect nickname. Entering the first training camp in Vegas, Neal titled the team group text chat “Golden Misfits” as a joke about 30 players viewed as spare parts, unprotected in expansion by their previous teams, and bound together in a city many viewed as unfit for a hockey team.
That collective chip on their shoulders galvanized the group and drove their success in the inaugural season. Nearly a decade later, after becoming the class of the league, the chip remains.
“I was kind of thinking about it this year in the playoff series against Anaheim,” Theodore said during Monday’s Cup Final media day. “You kind of always want to stick it to them.”
When Theodore exited Anaheim, the Ducks had participated in the playoffs in five consecutive seasons. After he left, they were swept in the first round by San Jose, then missed the playoffs for seven straight years. They ended that drought this season, but were eliminated by Theodore and the Golden Knights.
“It’s funny how things work out sometimes,” Theodore said.
Theodore’s 122 playoff games since 2017-18 are the most of any defenseman in the NHL. His 79 points over that span rank fourth, and his plus-26 rating ranks fifth.
He dances around the offensive blue line in a way very few can. He showed that off in Game 1, putting Hurricanes defenseman Sean Walker in a blender with a subtle change of direction to buy time before feeding a perfectly placed pass for Howden to redirect into the Carolina net in the third period.
McNabb picked up the secondary assist on that play. It was one of three helpers on the night for him, which was the most he’s ever had in 1,005 career NHL games.
“He’s an offensive guy,” Theodore joked about his defensive stalwart of a partner.
When asked during the postgame news conference if he was aware that it was the first three-assist game of his career, McNabb shrugged it off. His teammate Tomáš Hertl, who was sitting beside him, was stoked.
“Oh, wow,” he interjected. “I didn’t know that. That’s awesome!”
It’s a glimpse into the dynamic that makes McNabb such an important piece of the Golden Knights’ puzzle. He’s a soldier, content to handle the dirty work in front of the net without much praise for statistical excellence. He shies away from attention, but his teammates adore him for it.
Karlsson is wired similarly. While he’s more than capable of making flashy plays on the ice and can give a heck of a speech after a few beers at a championship parade, Karlsson is a quiet professional behind the scenes. There’s a reason he has been a coach’s favorite through four different regimes. He’s a world-class skater with an elite checking game and a knack for scoring goals in big moments, but he mostly keeps his head down.
The quiet confidence that Karlsson, Theodore and McNabb carry themselves with has permeated its way through the entire team over the years, and it was crucial to Tuesday’s comeback win, which was Vegas’ seventh of this postseason.
“They’re calm,” coach John Tortorella said of the trio. “They’ve won before. They’ve been in this situation. The foundation of our team, the guts of our team, has been through this before. We’re down 2-0, but there wasn’t panic on the bench. Those guys kind of lead the way by not panicking. They don’t say much, they just play, and I think other people follow behind them. I think that’s so important this time of year.”
Karlsson, Theodore and McNabb are certainly not the vocal leaders of the Golden Knights. They’re not the stars. Captain Mark Stone has put his stamp on the organization. Jack Eichel is arguably the most talented player in team history and a former captain in his own right. Mitch Marner is the favorite to win the Conn Smythe Trophy if the team wins three more games. Hertl scored a spectacular game-winning goal on Tuesday. Even beyond that, there’s no shortage of veteran leadership in the dressing room.
Still, it’s impossible to overstate the value of the original “Golden Misfits,” the impact they’ve made over the course of the franchise, and the impact they’re still making on a nightly basis.
“We have so many guys that are voices in the locker room, who have been captains on their previous teams,” Kolesar said. “We’ve always had guys like that, but they’re the heart and soul of the team.”