gone anywhere. And if they were gifted such a good team, why was it so different by the end of the second season? The reality is that the first year's team caught lightning in a bottle and was way better then they should have been. It was magic and completely unexplainable. Had management just sat on that team they would have faded to the bottom of the league. Far from being gifted a cup contender, that team wasn't great. People forget, one of our top players that first year was future hall of famer James Neal. What has made the golden knights continuously good is an an absolutely brilliant management team that has made the right moves. That's the difference between the knights and seattle. They weren't gifted a cup, they built a cup contender.