Golden Knights prepared to 'hunt the trophy again'

LAS VEGAS -- The sparkly, super detailed and massive rings have been weighing down their fingers since they got them Sunday night, a shining example of what the Vegas Golden Knights earned less than four months ago.

On Tuesday, the Stanley Cup championship banner will be raised to the rafters of T-Mobile Arena before Vegas opens its season against the Seattle Kraken (10:30 p.m. ET; ESPN+, ESPN, SN, TVAS), a permanent reminder that the Golden Knights reached the top of the mountain in 2022-23, their sixth season in the NHL.

Then it's time to get down to business.

The puck will drop on the Golden Knights' 2023-24 season after the banner goes up, and when it touches the ice, they will again be one of 32 teams starting from zero.

However, for the first time in their history, one thing will separate the Golden Knights from the other 31 teams.

The other 31 teams won't be defending a championship.

"They're going to hunt us," forward William Karlsson said.

"That's what comes with the territory," defenseman Shea Theodore said.

Karlsson said the Golden Knights have a plan for how to deal with it.

"We need the mindset that we're turning it to a new page," Karlsson said. "It's a blank page and we've got to go hunt the trophy again."

Every team that wins the Cup says that before the next season starts, but it's obviously way easier said than done, and the Golden Knights are not naïve enough to think they're going to be any different.

Since the 1980s, which were dominated by the New York Islanders, who won four straight championships (1980-83), and the Edmonton Oilers, who also won four (1984-85, 1987-88), only four teams have repeated as Stanley Cup champions: the Pittsburgh Penguins (1991-92), Detroit Red Wings (1997-98), Penguins again (2016-17), and Tampa Bay Lightning (2020-21).

On the other hand, since the NHL expanded from its Original Six in 1967, five teams have failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs the season after winning the Cup: the Toronto Maple Leafs (1967-68), Montreal Canadiens (1969-70), New Jersey Devils (1995-96), Carolina Hurricanes (2006-07) and Los Angeles Kings (2014-15).

The Golden Knights are built to be a contender again and are one of the favorites in the Western Conference. So, it would be shocking if they weren't. But this is new ground for them, and it's unknown how they will handle the pressure of being a first-time champion instead of trying to become one.

"Well, there's two parts of that," Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. "The first part is we are a good team, so usually a team is going to come in and say, 'Hey, we've got to be on today, this is a good hockey club.' So, you get that part. The second part is there's teams during the year that might be non-playoff teams that know they're still working their way toward that, and they say, 'This is a measuring stick game for us.' We're going to get everybody's 'This is a measuring stick game.' We won't get let off by any team, at least early on. We'll get everyone saying, 'They're the cream of the division, the cream of the conference, the cream of the League, and we better be ready to go.' That's part of being a champ. It's good pressure to have. It forces you to be ready."

The good news for Vegas is there's a lot of familiarity in the room.

Twenty of the 24 players who appeared in at least one playoff game with Vegas during its run to the championship are back this season. The most significant loss is forward Reilly Smith, who was traded to the Penguins on June 28 for salary cap purposes. He's the only regular who isn't back.

That doesn't mean there won't be adversity. They're already being forced to start the season down two defensemen with Zach Whitecloud (upper body) and Alec Martinez (undisclosed) unavailable.

"When you're the defending Stanley Cup champions everyone talks about a Stanley Cup hangover and where do you find the motivation?" forward Jack Eichel said. "I don't think that's an issue in this room. If you watch our practice, you see how competitive it is. If you're around the guys in the room, you understand that's not an issue. I think everybody after winning last year wants to win just as much, if not more, again to experience it. But with winning obviously comes a target, and you're not going to get anyone taking you lightly. Not that I ever thought anybody did take us lightly, but everyone wants to beat you and people are going to look at you as a measuring stick and give you their best game. It's making sure we're consistent with our game and show up to play every night."

That starts against the Kraken, and Cassidy isn't quite sure what to expect, at least in the first period, which starts soon after the banner goes up, when the energy in the building should be at a championship night level.

"I think we could be up 3-0 or down 3-0 in the first 10 minutes because we could be so jacked up for that whole thing and just flying around," Cassidy said. "I think we will be pretty darn excited about the whole thing, but are we flying around with a purpose or are we flying around just because we're excited the banner is up and we have no structure? I think that's just part of it. I'd like it to go our way and be ready. I think we have a veteran enough group to know what's at stake. They shouldn't be awestruck by any means or unrealistic of what's expected in the game, but those are emotional moments that can tilt either way."

The thing, though, is that emotional moment, those first 10 minutes. It's what the Golden Knights have been waiting for since returning for training camp last month.

They're ready to start over.

"Once the preseason started we were trying to mentally get to this point, like I can't wait until preseason is done with and we can get our rings and get all that," Theodore said. "Now it's really just soaking it all in and just getting ready to try to do it all again."