Golden Knights set sights on Stanley Cup

LAS VEGAS -- The fairy tale has ended. The Vegas Golden Knights are on to the sequel.
"This past year was a remarkable year, but it's over," general manager George McPhee said during NHL Awards media day at the Wynn Encore on Tuesday. "We're moving on. We're taking the rearview mirror out of the car. We're not looking back. We're talking about next year now."

The Golden Knights stocked their roster at the NHL Awards and Expansion Draft at T-Mobile Arena on June 21, 2017.
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Three hundred sixty-four days later, they will help stock the 2018 NHL Awards presented by Hulu at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, SN).
McPhee is a finalist for General Manager of the Year, Gerard Gallant for the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year, center William Karlsson for the Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship and performance, and defenseman Deryk Engelland for the Mark Messier Leadership Award.
The 2017-18 Golden Knights were the greatest expansion team of all time, shattering records for inaugural seasons. They won the Pacific Division and finished fifth in the NHL, then made the Stanley Cup Final.
You might think their challenge in their second season will be to match what they did in their first. But McPhee didn't try to manage expectations. He said repeatedly that they wanted to be better.
"That's why we're here: to make them better and to deliver a Stanley Cup," McPhee said.
Where does McPhee see room for improvement?
"Well, if I told you that, then you'd know what I'm trying to do in the next week or so," McPhee said.
Karlsson, forwards William Carrier and Tomas Nosek and defensemen Colin Miller and Shea Theodore are restricted free agents. Forwards James Neal, David Perron and Ryan Reaves and defenseman Luca Sbisa are unrestricted.

McPhee has the assets and the salary-cap space to maneuver via trade or free agency. The 2018 NHL Draft is at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN, SN, TVAS) and Saturday (11 a.m. ET; NHLN, SN, TVAS). Free agency begins July 1.
"We've made a lot of calls," McPhee said. "We have a pretty good idea of what people want to accomplish, and we'll go to the draft in a couple days and see what develops there."
The trick will be to balance short- and long-term needs, while keeping the culture intact.
"I can't tell you which way things are going to go here the next couple of weeks, whether we'll be in big deals or not, whether we'll sign players or not," McPhee said. "Don't know. We'll just have to see how things go, but we'll use all of our resources to try and make good decisions to make this team better. That's the objective. …
"There's a lot of value to cap space. You don't have to use it all now, and there are different times to use it. But it really comes down to getting the right players for your team and again trying to keep what we have in that room, which is a bunch of hard-working guys that play the game right and show up ready to play. We don't have a hierarchy. We don't have entitlement. … We'll try to be consistent with that, because it seems to be what our fans liked a lot."
The 2017-18 Golden Knights exceeded expectations collectively and individually. Thirteen players had NHL career highs in points. Ten had NHL career highs in goals. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury had the lowest goals-against average (2.24) and highest save percentage (.927) in his 14-year career.

Maybe they're ripe for regression. Maybe not.
"We had a lot of growth on this team this year," McPhee said. "I think we can play even better. There was an opportunity for a lot of guys to play regularly and play higher in the lineup, and a lot of them developed. The development in the playoffs can make you a much better player than you've ever been, and so we expect the guys to come back next September and that group should be better."
The Golden Knights conducted their exit interviews on June 8, the day after their season ended with a 4-3 loss to the Washington Capitals in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final. In general, the message was simple.
"It was all positive, but let's be ready for next year," Gallant said. "Next year's going to be tougher."
Why tougher?
"Because of what we've done," Gallant said. "Teams are going to know we're not an expansion team. They're going to be ready for us. And they were ready for us the second half of the season. But I just think it's going to be tougher. We've got to show up every game and be ready to play."

The players seemed to get it.
"What can we do to get better?" Engelland said. "That's basically the whole thing right there. They want to get better, just like we do. Whatever they can do as the organization from the top down to get better and whatever we can do, everyone's going to do that."
Said Karlsson: "If we won the Cup, that would be better. So that's what we're aiming for."