McPhee Checks In

Let's call this Christmas with the Golden Knights.
These are down days for the NHL with no games on the ice and no player availability - so we thought this would be a good time to catch up with the leadership triumvirate of the Vegas Golden Knights: owner Bill Foley, GM George McPhee and president Kerry Bubolz.
The Golden Knights sit atop the Western Conference with a 23-9-2 mark. It's been the most improbable of starts for the expansion franchise in Vegas. Expert after expert predicted this team would fail both on and off the ice but that simply hasn't been the case.
McPhee and his hockey operations staff took full advantage of friendlier expansion draft rules and crafted a roster which is not only competitive in today's NHL but is also stocked with players aged 26 and under and just hitting their prime. Jonathan Marchessault, Erik Haula, Colin Miller, Reilly Smith, Alex Tuch, Shea Theodore, Nate Schmidt and Malcolm Subban are all contributing on the NHL roster and have lots of good years ahead of them.
McPhee also loaded up collecting five years worth of draft picks over the first three years of this organization's existence and kicked off his draft and development program selecting prospects such as Cody Glass, Nick Suzuki, Erik Brannstrom and Nic Hague.
The present is solid and McPhee has positioned himself to create a pipeline which will churn out players moving forward.
The organizational depth chart still needs time but with all the picks McPhee has been able to acquire - soon there will be a long list of Golden Knights prospects playing at the amateur level and in the AHL.
Off the ice, the organization has enjoyed unparalleled early success. Every home game has seen over-capacity attendance and the franchise sits third in the league at 102.6 percent.
Foley says the club is ahead of budget in key revenue areas such as ticketing, sponsorship and merchandise.
Here's the first of our three part Q and A series. McPhee goes today, Bubolz on Dec. 25th and Foley on Dec. 26th.

VGK.com: 2017 was a pretty big year for hockey in Vegas, how did it go?
GM: Well the year leading up to our first training camp was breathtaking and exhausting with all that we had to do. I really thought before training camp there was a sense of calm that we had done everything we could do. We had the players, we had the coaches and everyone was in place in our organization. We needed the players to become a team and the coaches to help make it a team and they did. It's still early, but it looks like a darn good hockey team.
VGK.com: How do you feel when you look at the standings?
GM: I don't look at it. Maybe noticed it twice. It's more productive to just focus on what we have to do to make our team better day by day and game by game. I haven't looked at the standings a whole lot. We certainly know where we are and we're proud of it. But it's still early.
You certainly have to enjoy the wins. Don't critique wins, don't try and tent them down. Enjoy them. I would share Doug Risebrough's (GM of the Minnesota Wild during their expansion phase) sentiments about evaluating and not worrying about the scores sometimes. It certainly felt that way against Tampa. We thought we were playing a good game. The game was hanging in the balance of not knowing whether we would win or lose. But what we did feel that night was that 'this is a very good team and we're playing another really good team and playing just as well as they are.' That night we felt that despite what the score was going to be, we're a really good team.
VGK.com: The team has had success but there's also been growth among individual players.
GM: No doubt about that. What we wanted from our coaching staff and what we thought Gerard would bring was a sense of calm, a plan and experience. Get the team playing as well as they can play, but also develop individuals. We've all noticed at different stages during the season, where a certain player's light came on and they sort of got it and it's kicked in and now they're different players and better players. We have several players in that category. Most players are playing the best hockey they've ever played, but several players who have really elevated their games and have become very effective players.

On their ability to skate:
Well the takeaways from Risebrough and Bob Clarke were pretty clear. Risebrough emphasized speed and Clarke emphasized getting a team of workers. That was the main thing from both of them and we've combined it to try to get both.
VGK.com: There's positive peer pressure within this group. How does that manifest itself?
GM: We try to get workers and guys that can skate. What we do know is that the team dynamic here is very, very strong. We have a very good leadership group. Even though you've been in the league a couple of years, you still have to learn how to be a pro. Young guys coming into the league-with the exception of a handful- don't know how to be pros and they have to learn from other pros. Our leadership group has been very good in leading the way. It's worked out very well here for a lot of players in that respect. They want to be counted on and they want to be part of this group.
VGK.com: What is the next job for your management group?
GM: Well we're having a lot of meetings in January with our pro staff and our amateur staff. We'll get their insights on this team and where we go from here. We'll just have to prepare for the draft. We have a plan, but the plans can change. We'll continue to do what we've been doing the last two or three months. That is to observe and absorb.
VGK.com: The model here, no salary hierarchy and a near equal distribution of ice time, has been effective. Is it sustainable?

GM: It's a team. As result, it feels like a team. It's the most fun you can have working with a team. We like the model and we'd like to keep it this way. We'll see how we do moving forward.
VGK.com: Why did you claim Malcolm Subban off of waivers?
GM: I think it goes deeper than that and farther back to some of my experience in Washington when we were rebuilding our team. We had a pretty good team, but as good as our goaltenders were, they were young and not quite experienced enough to carry us through. Whether it was Varlamov or Holtby, you don't want to be experimenting with goaltenders when your team is so ready to push from competitor to contender status or hopefully champion status. You don't want to be experimenting with goaltending. So we had identified that of something that we wanted to take care of early in our development if we could. Have an experienced goaltender like Fleury and then find the next guy that we can develop and be ready when this team matures. Subban was a goaltender that we identified that would fit in that way. Dave Prior liked him a lot and advocated for him all of last year. We had a quite a debate around the expansion draft whether to claim him or Colin Miller. We thought there might be a chance to get Subban through a trade so we claimed Miller. Couldn't get Subban through a trade but in September he was available so we made the claim. He has good size and he's very athletic. His legs are very good in the way that he can move laterally and stretch out and deny dekes and so on. His arms are very active, more than most goalies probably. He learns quickly. He absorbs quickly. Dave will point out some things and it's quickly engrained with this goaltender. He seems to have the right personality for this team and that position. If he continues to be coachable he could be a good one.

VGK.com: How important was Dave Prior's approach during the goaltending situation when you lost three goalies to injury this season?
GM: We were very fortunate. Dave, in our minds, is one of the best in the business. He has a unique approach and personality, but he knows what he is doing and he believes in what he is doing. His only regret with all of the goaltenders is that he didn't have enough time to work with Lagace early on to get him ready. He was trying to get other starters ready. But I'm pretty sure that Dave was the second phone call we made when we were putting the organization together. The first was Katy Boettinger and the second was Dave Prior. So we had known for a while that he would be really important to the organization and it's one of the most important hires of an organization.
VGK.com: The present seems so attractive. How do you make sure you don't lose sight of the big picture and worry just about the here and now?
GM: We won't lose sight of that because that's how champions are built. We're going to continue to do that. The good news is, we had a head start with this terrific group we were able to claim in expansion. They've become a team and they're going to be really competitive. They're going to allow us to develop the young players we've drafted at the right pace and do everything right.