Story by Alan Snel Photos by Hugh Byrne
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The Vegas Golden Knights are not afraid of change. In fact, they’re at ease at embracing it since launching the franchise’s successful tenure since 2017.
General Manager Kelly McCrimmon has pulled off blockbuster trades and player signings, while owner Bill Foley has bought out his original team partners, the Maloofs. And there’s even a new business operations president, John Penhollow, who has, in turn, hired his own team including a chief operating officer and chief marketing officer. Penhollow succeeds Kerry Bubolz, hired by Foley at the start.
And this season, the VGK have switched their radio stations, moving to Beasley’s 107.9 FM (KVGS) with play-by-play man Dan D’Uva and color analyst Gary Lawless from Lotus Broadcasting’s 94.7 FM and before that, 98.9 FM. The radio transition from Lotus to Beasley included a new Knights pregame/postgame/intermission host, Doug Latucca. Latucca replaces Ryan Wallis, who has a hockey show, called, “Neutral Ice,” on 94.7 FM, Lotus’ FOX radio station, and has joined the SinBinVegas team.
The Knights also have a new head coach, Ryan Craig, who has been groomed by McCrimmon for years to eventually be the top bench man for the VGK. Former Vegas coach Tortorella, who took over for a fired Bruce Cassidy late last season, led the Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Final with playoff wins over Utah, Anaheim and Colorado before Carolina knocked out Vegas in six games in the Final.
During Craig’s postgame press conference, there’s even a new soda sponsor as evidenced by the Dr. Pepper soda bottle on the table in front of him and the Dr. Pepper logo on the background board placed behind coaches at the pressers.
At tonight’s Ducks-Knights game, there were no fans in the arena areas flanking the castle at T-Mobile Arena. In previous seasons, the VGK called it a “flight deck” and sold standing room only tickets with munchy food like nachos and hot dogs. Vegas announced attendance at 17,619 — below the 18K mark in a building with 17,367 fixed seats.
Vegas goalie Carter Hart is making his second consecutive start in Game 2 of a new 84-game regular season schedule. He defeated Chicago, 5-2, opening night but yielded a breakaway goal to Anaheim winger Beckett Sennecke thanks to a gorgeous pass by Anaheim star center Leo Carlsson in the first period with only eight seconds left in the period.
That goal was a backbreaker.
Anaheim scored three goals at the start of the second period after an evenly-played first period and took a beefy 4-0 lead into the second intermission.
There are lots of Anaheim Ducks fans in the building as Anaheim plays its first game of the season.
Early in the second period, Alex Killorn gave the Ducks a 2-0 lead.
And Anaheim struck again on a goal by Jeff Malott.
And Carlsson mopped up an easy goal after Hart made a nice save and the Ducks were cruising with a 4-0 lead after 40 minutes.
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