Golden Knights robbed themselves of positive coverage entering west final with fine, forfeited pick
The Vegas Golden Knights were docked a second-round pick in the upcoming NHL draft while head coach John Tortorella was fined $100,000 for violations of the league’s media policies for no-showing a press conference and keeping the locker room closed to reporters after their series-clinching win over the Anaheim Ducks.
On Tuesday, the Golden Knights appealed the punishments, and according to ESPN reporter Emily Kaplan, the league opted to keep them in place.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by host of The Sheet Jeff Marek to discuss how Vegas’ infraction took positive attention away from both the team and the league at the wrong time.
Tyler Yaremchuk: My jaw hit the floor on Friday when I saw that they took away a second-round pick from the Vegas Golden Knights, and I guess previous warnings and all that stuff they factor into it, but like having not known that there were previous warnings, just seeing that, it was like, ‘Holy shit I can’t believe they did that.’ Where do you think this goes? Where does this story end with the Golden Knights and this and the Tortorellathing in the NHL?
Jeff Marek: I think like this part of it is done. I think that if you’re the NHL… the NHL has always been very kind to the Vegas Golden Knights. Tt has it’s become sort of a really important piece in the National Hockey League, and they’ve been treated that way, which is why I think that you know Bettman was, and I don’t think they did this sort of impulsively, a hundred thousand dollars and a second-round pick, like I don’t think he was just like emotional about it. I think that this was disappointing to the point where the commissioner’s office said we need to do something significant here as a message to other teams as well. The one thing that I keep coming back to on this one Tyler, you’re right, there were the warnings previously. Never lose sight of one thing right now. We live in an attention economy. Everybody’s trying to get attention, whether it’s individual athletes, or whether it’s companies, or whether it’s teams, or whether it’s leagues. Right now, given that everyone’s just in the attention economy, I don’t think the Vegas Golden Knights should be in the business of denying themselves, and by extension the NHL, some significant positive attention. They just made it to the conference final, like let’s not lose sight, this isn’t like after Game 2, not that that would be excusable, but nonetheless. This is after they just made it to the conference final. This is about to be the good news press conference… This is one that you want to happen. I know you’re upset about, I don’t think it is specifically about the McNabb suspension, but still even if you were sour about that, you’re going out there to tell a good news story, and that denied the NHL from having a good news story around one of the most important franchises the Vegas Golden Knights, and it just made them look childish.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…