Every Friday this season, theScore's NHL editors are debating a hot-button issue in On The Fly, our roundtable series. This week, we discuss what we're excited for, and concerned about with hockey heading to Vegas.
Blank slate
Wilkins: General manager George McPhee has a unique opportunity with the Vegas Golden Knights.
Typically, when a GM takes over, he's inheriting a roster he hopes to build into a winner. But it often comes with its less desirable parts - it's not uncommon to see a GM saddled with scouts he didn't hire, a coach he didn't pick, and a handful of ugly contracts he's not too fond of.
That's not the case in Vegas, where McPhee, the former general manager in Washington, will start with a clean slate in his attempt to bring Lord Stanley to the Strip.
McPhee gets to lay the first brick with the Golden Knights, choosing everything from the team's initial roster and its staff. He even had input on the team's official name. Not a bad gig.
Is there anybody out there?
Gold-Smith: Golden Knights fans hit their season-ticket deposit cap long before the team had a name or a logo, but it's the years after their inaugural campaign that owner Bill Foley should be concerned about.
There will be at least 16,000 seats accounted for in 2017-18 thanks to the early season-ticket drive, but whether they're consistently filled in a city with an unrivaled number of evening entertainment options remains to be seen.
The onus will be on the club's management - led by McPhee and whoever he tabs as head coach - to build a competitive team that holds interest long enough to establish a loyal fan base in a town with myriad distractions.
How the Golden Knights do at the gate will be one of the most intriguing storylines of their maiden voyage in the NHL.
The on-ice product
Cuthbert: When a bullish Foley triumphantly vowed that the executive team he chose would craft a championship roster within six seasons, it was clear that he hadn’t been sitting in on the mock drafts.
Without question, Las Vegas has assembled an impressive collection of hockey minds and strategists more than capable of building a successful franchise from the ground up. But because the expansion mandate has proven to accommodate the NHL’s 30 active teams, it would be naive to expect even the most fervent talent evaluators to piece together more than a glorified American Hockey League team with its selections.
Mock drafts from pundits and fans shared and discussed online are alarming, and these rosters have been assembled even before the NHL’s active franchises board up their rosters with the deadline still months away.
McPhee’s team is going to unearth talent. But with the way the NHL has protected its other teams, you have to be concerned about the product the Knights will bring to opening night.
Looking the part
McLaren: For as poorly as the unveiling went for the team we now know as the Vegas Golden Knights, the logo, at the very least, was well worth the wait.
The first thing about the logo that stands out is the V built into the Knight's helmet, which was a stroke of design genius. It works especially well after it was announced the team would be go by Vegas and not Las Vegas, a nod to the locals on the part of owner Bill Foley.
The gold is said to represent the fact Nevada is the largest producer of gold in the United States, while the grey represents strength and durability, and the black represents power and intensity.
Put it all together, and the hockey world has a slick new logo that fans from all over the world can proudly don - even if the the team is an absolute embarrassment on the ice to begin with.
Copyright © 2016 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.