As fans woke up on the summer solstice on Thursday morning, the Vegas Golden Knights released their 2024-2025 preseason schedule which starts September 22nd, 2024 against the San Jose Sharks. Now, it isn’t exactly scintillating news (cool pins giveaway notwithstanding – as a pin will be given to fans attending any preseason game). The news pales in comparison to what’s happening in New Jersey and Los Angeles. But it’s never been the job of the preseason, regardless of the league, to be scintillating. Their job is to entertain in a little pocket of time. Therefore, let’s take a look at what piqued our interest from the six-pack of games.
The Vegas Golden Knights Preseason and A California Twofer
The Golden Knights are continuing a preseason tradition that stretches back to the team’s very first preseason. That tradition being the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings feature prominently. The former are featured in the beginning and ending of the preseason (September 22nd and October 5th at T-Mobile Arena). Moreover, the latter the first home preseason game September 25th.
The intriguing thing about the Sharks pretty much begins and ends with having the first overall selection in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft and the prospective number one pick, Macklin Celebrini. That is barring more free agency magic not named Barclay Goodrow in the next three-plus months. And even then, this is still a team that’s still the next Avengers movie away from being a competitive team. So, get in any Baby Shark-related jokes while you still can.
As for the Kings, one can say they’re on the opposite end of that spectrum. Yes, they were quite roasted by the Edmonton Oilers in the first round of the 2024 NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. However, with Pierre-Luc Dubois gone and Darcy Kuemper the man in net, alongside talent like Quinton Byfield and Adrian Kempe…that’s a recipe for a really successful team. Or least an interesting watch.
New Name, Same Vibes
Speaking of interesting watches, the newly minted Utah Hockey Club will be exciting. Their matchup follows L.A. to T-Mobile Arena in the third game for both teams on September 27th. The Utah Hockey Club is a title that was able to migrate along with the skeleton of the team brought to Salt Lake City, Utah. And with the new owner Ryan Smith and the sizable salary cap space that also came along with purchasing the team, that should be even more of a reason to watch them. Moreover, the jersey design and colours will be exciting to see live in action for the fans of both sides.
Comin’ Down the Mountain…
Rounding out the opponents are the rival Colorado Avalanche. This rivalry comes in the form of a mini-series: October 1st in Denver, and October 3rd back at T-Mobile. Odds are that both games are gonna be absolutely entertaining, especially given last preseason. And to this author’s eternal relief (and eternal annoyance that it happened), neither game will be the team’s official Pride Knight.
Much like Utah and San Jose, there’s also a solid chance this Avs team will be different from what we saw last preseason. There’s the hole left by Valeri Nichushkin’s suspension. Missing Nichushkin is going to need to be addressed if they want another chance at a Stanley Cup run. Then there’s the saga of Gabriel Landeskog that probably won’t end by then, but certainly once the games actually matter. And then there’s question marks like Jonathan Drouin and Yakov Trenin. These players and more are on their to-do list this summer that’ll determine just how close to last year’s preseason classic this will actually be.
Bottom line, Colorado is still going to be a very, very strong team. Of course, three reasons the Avalanche will be competitive start and end with Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, and their Moose (aka Mikko Rantanen). Given that it’s near the end of the Avs preseason schedule, this should be a really fun, entertaining couple of games in October.
