Kansas City Royals: Vegas Golden Knights reminiscent of 2014 Royals
With the 2018 season not going very well for the Kansas City Royals, it’s time to look back on the better times for our boys in blue. The Vegas Golden Knights of the NHL remind me of the Royals of old.
When all else fails, what cheers sports fans up more than reliving the glory days? For the Kansas City Royals, the glory days were in the 2014 and 2015 seasons when the team made it all the way to the World Series both years.
For the Vegas Golden Knights, however, they have no history. They’re an expansion team in their first year in the National Hockey League. No one expected the Golden Knights to be any good this year, but they’ve defied every odd and are still very much in the thick of the Stanley Cup race.
That’s exactly how the Royals were in 2014. They were coming off a winning season in 2013, their first in a decade, but no one had any faith that the Royals would continue to be a winning ball club throughout the next season.
Looking back at that 2014 Royals run, it’s incredible how it played itself out.
PECOTA projected the Royals to win 79 games and they went above and beyond that, winning 89 and making it to the playoffs for the first time in 29 years. To compare, the Golden Knights were supposed to be awful, especially when they took a lot of players on one year deals through the Expansion Draft, hoping to flip them at the deadline for picks and prospects.
Instead, Vegas ended their first ever season in the NHL with a record of 51-24-7, good for the best in the Pacific Division and fifth best overall in the league. Now, here’s where it gets even crazier.
The Royals would sweep their entire way through the 2014 postseason before making it to the World Series (and ultimately losing to the San Francisco Giants). The Knights have only played in one series so far, but, you guessed it, they swept the Los Angeles Kings to make it to the second round.
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As someone who always enjoyed hockey, but never had a team, the Vegas Golden Knights became my team. They were brand new, so there was no “bandwagon fan” crap, plus they were in one of my favorite cities: Las Vegas.
The Golden Knights run this season is very similar to how the Royals made me feel in 2014. No one had any expectations for them, but they barreled through them and are giving a giant middle finger to everyone who doubted them on the way.
Looking back at that 2014 Royals run, it’s incredible how it played itself out. Royals fans were perfectly content with just being in the postseason. The Wild Card Game was a big accomplishment for our boys in blue. Not many of us pegged the Royals to make it all the way to the final game of the Major League Baseball season, but they did just that.
The fact that the Royals not only won the Wild Card Game, but HOW they won it, and then 8-0 run to the fall classic was something I’ll never forget. There may never be a more exciting sports run for Kansas City sports fans in our entire lives.
Of course, we all know that the 2014 season ended with the Kansas City Royals stranding the game tying runner on third base in Game 7 of the World Series. The Royals did come back and win it all in 2015, so maybe the Golden Knights will be losing in the Stanley Cup Finals this year, but winning it in 2019?
The Kansas City Royals won’t be worth watching this season, but man were their glory days a hell of a lot of fun. That’s what Golden Knights fans and the people of Las Vegas are experiencing this year. A whole lot of fun.