(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)

Motivation has never been an issue for the Golden Knights. While many other teams have fallen into the complacency trap, Vegas really hasn’t. Even the year they missed the playoffs, the effort and intensity were there every night down the stretch; they simply ran out of healthy bodies to compete.

So, the idea that it could become a problem in VGK’s 9th season is not much of a concern. However, if there were any lingering doubts, a recent anecdote from Elliotte Friedman on the 32 Thoughts Podcast put that to bed well in advance of the new season beginning.

So one of the things I heard actually was those were some pretty harsh meetings during and after (the VGK vs EDM series). They were disappointed. I think everybody was disappointed. Not that they lost, but they got manhandled. And I think the management was mad. I think the coaching staff was mad. I think the players were mad. And I heard it was B-L-U-N-T, Blunt. And I think there was some understanding that some of those guys were really beaten up. But I think everybody knew how everybody felt about the way they got dominated by the Oilers. We’ll be motivating for them. –Elliotte Friedman on 32 Thoughts Podcast

After failing to score in 127 consecutive minutes against the Oilers, the Golden Knights did not whimper off into the offseason. They had some hard conversations about what went wrong and what needed to be done to fix it.

Clearly, the deficiency that came to the forefront was a lack of scoring wingers, and the addition of Mitch Marner should hopefully fix that problem. Another idea that has been mentioned since the Game 5 loss is the desire to create a fourth line that plays a straight-line forecheck-centered game. Colton Sissons’ acquisition could help address this issue as well.

It would be interesting to know which players were “blunt” in their assessments of the team, especially considering captain Mark Stone missed Game 4 and alternate Alex Pietrangelo was likely aware his future was in jeopardy. Brayden McNabb and William Karlsson, who served as the other alternates, are not the most vocal. Jack Eichel, Noah Hanifin, and Tomas Hertl come to mind as the most likely, but that’s simply a guess.

Either way, a second round loss to a division foe obviously did not sit well with anyone in the organization, and there’s going to be an expectation to achieve more in 2025-26. If not, expect sweeping changes as the window on the current roster is shrinking rapidly.