Mark Stone: Golden Knights have a knack for angering fans (of other teams)

As you know, the Golden Knights play field hockey within the limits of the collective agreement.

Every year for the past three years, the club’s captain has been injured just before the trade deadline. This creates space on the club’s payroll, and the club often looks for reinforcements.

And curiously, he’s always ready to come back for the playoffs, when the payroll no longer exists. Microfracture or not, this guy shows up for the playoffs.

Yesterday, for example, in the first playoff game against Dallas, he made his return to action. Not only did he play more than 17 minutes, but he also scored in the very first minutes of the game.

A goal in a 4-3 win makes all the difference, let’s face it.

He came back from the dead to make the difference. He really looked in top form for a guy who was described as “too injured to play” just a few days ago, when the regular season was still underway.

And let’s just say it was highlighted en masse on social networks.

But because the Golden Knights do things their own way, it’s worth noting that on the club’s social networks, the situation is a source of content. The club is having fun with it.

Announcing his return (yesterday) by quoting him without naming him (and tagging “guess who” instead) is a good example.

Fans of other teams(including the Stars, who booed Stone) are angry about this. Many in the NHL public sphere are too, saying ” it’s not fair ” since not all clubs play by the same rules.

But the reality is that anyone can do it. The Blackhawks, Lightning and Golden Knights all won the Cup by taking advantage of this rule… and Tampa did so after asking for the rule to be changed, following the 2015 Stanley Cup.

It didn’t work and Julien BriseBois, instead, took advantage of it against the Habs in 2021. #NikitaKucherov

As long as the rules remain unchanged, other teams will have to do the same thing to win… knowing full well that the NHL will do nothing to stop them. No one can say it’s not fair for everyone.

In gusto

– It’s Claude Julien’s birthday.

– Indeed.

– Sebastian Aho is missing.

– Marc-André Fleury is happy to be back in Minnesota. [RDS]

– Quite a photo.

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A publication shared by P.K. Subban (@subbanator)