After second-round exit, is Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup window closing?

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LAS VEGAS — The Golden Knights bowed out of their second-round series against the Edmonton Oilers in five games following a 1-0 overtime loss Wednesday night at T-Mobile Arena.

Vegas’ only win in the series came on a game-winning goal with 0.4 seconds left in Game 3, and even that was deflected by Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl into his own net. The team ended the season on a 127-minute goalless drought, and it’s not as if Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner was standing on his head to do it.

By most measures, the season wasn’t a failure. Vegas amassed 110 points, won a playoff series and earned another Pacific Division title banner to hang in the rafters at T-Mobile Arena. But those aren’t the banners this organization is after.

The Golden Knights are about winning the Stanley Cup, and by that measure, it was a failure.

This five-game defeat at the hands of the Oilers felt like a missed opportunity for an aging core of talented players in search of another Cup before their championship window closes.

“Every year you don’t win, it feels like a year wasted,” a despondent William Karlsson said following the loss.

And for a veteran team like the Golden Knights, who have aggressively traded away future assets to win now, every year that goes by also makes it more difficult to retool and improve.

This is only the third time Vegas has been eliminated in five games in team history. It’s the first time the opponent was a division rival. The Oilers have two of the best players in the world in their prime, and project to stand directly in Vegas’ way for the foreseeable future. Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said as much to the players in a team meeting Wednesday morning.

“No disrespect to the others, but we feel like we’re the two kings of the division and we’re going to have to go through each other to get where we want to go,” he said to the media, recounting his message to the team. “This is probably not a one-off.

“We feel, whatever the team looks like, we’ll be right back there next year. They’ll probably feel the same way. So this isn’t one game. This has got to be something you have to embrace if you expect to be the last team standing, because it’s probably going to happen down the road. This is not going to be the last time these two teams meet to get where they want to go.”

Following a series where Edmonton looked like the deeper, faster, more skilled team, it begs the question: Is Vegas’ championship window closing?

There were close games throughout the series. The teams twice went to overtime, and had another game decided in the final second of regulation. That suggests they are far closer in talent than the 4-1 series score suggests. However, it did feel like when the Golden Knights played their game, the games were incredibly tight, and when the Oilers played theirs, they were in complete control.

Perhaps more than any organization in the NHL, Vegas isn’t shy to change the roster in the name of improvement, but with limited future capital and a bevy of long-term contracts signed, it won’t be easy.

The Golden Knights don’t have a first-round pick in the upcoming draft. They don’t have one the following year either. They also have $85.9 million already allocated to next year’s roster, with five pending unrestricted free agents. They aren’t in a great position to clear out considerable cap space either, with their biggest contracts — Mark Stone, Alex Pietrangelo, Tomas Hertl and Jack Eichel — all protected by full no-movement clauses.

They don’t need a complete overhaul, but the question remains: Without the ability to make sweeping changes, can the Golden Knights improve enough to close the gap between themselves and Edmonton?

The current roster is obviously very talented, but it also seems to be a tier below the true Cup contenders. Yes, Vegas finished with 110 points and the third-best record in the NHL, but going 16-0-2 against the five non-playoff teams in the Pacific Division aided that.

That’s not to discount what the Golden Knights accomplished in their fourth division title in eight years. Taking care of business against bad teams within the division is important, and they’ve been as good at that as any team in the league. Moving forward, they should still have no problems doing that, but that’s not this team’s goal. In an ever-closing championship window, their sights are set on another Cup.

Against the conference’s best — which is the standard this team is held to — the results weren’t good enough. Their last regular-season win over a top-six team in the West came on Dec. 12, 2024, against Winnipeg. Vegas lost eight straight such games over the last three-plus months of the season.

Add in these five playoff games against Edmonton, and that’s 12 losses in the last 13 games against the best in the West.

After scoring the most goals in franchise history in the regular season, Vegas’ offense looked non-threatening for large stretches of this postseason. The team’s five top goal scorers — Dorofeyev, Hertl, Eichel, Barbashev and Howden — combined for zero goals in five games against Edmonton.

It’s against the nature of the Golden Knights’ front office to sit on their hands, so we can expect them to try to improve the roster. Where are the improvements going to come from?

It’s unlikely — but not impossible — that they’ll come from within. Outside of Eichel, who is still only 28, the vast majority of Vegas’ core pieces are on the wrong side of 30. Pietrangelo is the eldest statesman, turning 36 next season, and still has two more years left on his contract with an $8.8 million cap hit. He averaged his lowest ice time since his rookie season this year, and scored only four goals for the second straight season. He battled admirably through injuries down the stretch and in the playoffs, but clearly wasn’t himself.

Stone is 32, and while he was finally healthy and produced a point per game in the regular season, he wasn’t as effective in the playoffs and ended the season with an injury that held him out of Game 5. He has two more years left on his deal at a $9.5 million cap hit.

Karlsson is also 32, missed 29 games with a nagging injury this season, but was a bright spot for the team in the playoffs. Hertl is 31, didn’t register a point in the second round, and still has five years left on his contract with a $6.75 million cap hit.

The point is, Vegas’ core is aging and the hope is at best they can maintain their current level of play for a bit longer.

Then there are the “younger” core players whom the Golden Knights just recently locked into long-term contracts. Shea Theodore, 29, had a brilliant regular season but struggled at times in the playoffs, and finished with a team-worst minus-8 rating. He’ll carry a $7.425 million cap hit through 2031-32. Noah Hanifin, 28, seemed to take a step back in his first full season in Vegas. Even when he was on his game, he was rarely the type of difference-maker Vegas traded for and signed him to be. He’s also under contract through 2031-32 with a cap hit of $7.35 million.

Goaltender Adin Hill, who just inked a six-year extension with an annual average value of $6.25 million in March, had a very disappointing postseason. His .887 save percentage ranked 14th out of 20 goalies with at least three starts in the playoffs, and his minus-2.44 goals saved above expected ranked 18th.

With all of these long-term extensions, the Golden Knights’ core is pretty locked in, barring some drastic trades (which this team has been known to make). Even that plan is hampered by all of the no-movement clauses in the deals, though. There’s no doubt Vegas has a core of good players who are capable of winning plenty of games and competing in the playoffs, but are they good enough to win another Cup?

They saw encouraging improvement from depth players in 2024-25, getting career seasons from Keegan Kolesar, Brett Howden and Pavel Dorofeyev. In Kolesar and Howden’s cases, it’s fair to expect them to maintain that level but there’s a legitimate question of whether they can elevate further.

Dorofeyev, 24, is the one young piece who took a massive step, leading the team with 35 goals in the regular season. He was deadly on the power play and showed his deceptive release translates to goals in the NHL. On the other hand, while he can finish plays, he hasn’t proven he can be a driver of offense on a line, and he looked overwhelmed in his first real postseason action — with one goal, one assist and a minus-7 rating.

Even with the subpar ending, Dorofeyev’s season was encouraging overall, and he will be a great value with a cap hit of only $1.8 million next season.

Thanks to the rising cap, the Golden Knights will also have roughly $10.5 million in cap space to work with this summer. Reilly Smith, Victor Olofsson, Tanner Pearson, Brandon Saad and Ilya Samsonov are all on expiring contracts set to hit free agency, while Nicolas Hague is a restricted free agent due for a new deal.

They could use that space to bring most — if not all — of them back, but after this disappointing second-round exit, it seems more likely they’ll look to upgrade on the wing in free agency. Toronto’s Mitch Marner will be the top prize, and should command one of the richest contracts in the league. Winnipeg’s Nikolaj Ehlers and Vancouver’s Brock Boeser are two of the other top winger options.

It’s also important to remember Eichel’s current deal expires after the 2025-26 season, so he will be eligible to sign what projects to be a massive extension on July 1. He’s proven over the last two years that he’s an elite, franchise center.

It’ll be fascinating to see how many changes Vegas will make. The club has been aggressive over the last eight years, and finds creative ways to improve, but it has also started to run thin on future assets and is more locked in with long-term contracts.

The Golden Knights’ run has been impressive, with the second-most playoff wins since they entered the league and their names etched on the Stanley Cup. After a convincing defeat to a team looking to get back to the Cup Final, the question is, how close is Vegas’ championship window to closing?

We’ve seen enough from this core to know they’re still going to be a good team. Likely, a very good one. The only thing in question is: can they still be the best team?

(Photo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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