There’s been a strange trend from expansion clubs by making it to the Stanley Cup Final in their first official season.
Back in 1918, the Toronto Arenas won the 1918 Stanley Cup (insert 1967 joke here) by beating the Vancouver Millionaires in five games by a series score of 3-2.
Fast forward to 1968, the first year after the NHL expanded from six teams, and the St. Louis Blues made the final in their inaugural season with a 27-31-16 record. The league put all the expansion clubs – the Blues, Philadelphia Flyers, Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Pittsburgh Penguins and Oakland Seals in the NHL’s “West” Division. The Blues actually finished third in the standings, and defeated the Flyers and North Stars in seven games before being swept by the Montreal Canadiens in the third-round cup final.
Jump ahead now to the present day in 2018, and the Vegas Golden Knights are now the third team to have done this in NHL history. Did you notice a peculiar trend at all? It was exactly 50 years between the three expansion teams appearing in the cup final.
They’re also the sixth team to ever reach the big dance in their first playoff appearance.
With their ticket punched, one of the questions that’s popped up on the internet is what will the Golden Knights do with their inaugural season patch that’s located on their upper-right chest? The NHL issues out a patch for every team that qualifies for the Stanley Cup in the same location as their inaugural one.
According to Chris Creamer of SportsLogos.net, the NHL is going to be removing it.
This isn’t the first time that the NHL has done this. The 2016-17 Penguins and the 2015-16 Sharks were the most recent examples, which Chris outlined in his article.
Should the Golden Knights take off one of their alternative “sword” logos on their shoulders and replace it with the inaugural patch? It would be pretty cool to see it on the same jersey as the Stanley Cup patch.
(h/t Chris Creamer of Sports Logos)