Golden Knights on playoff bubble; how concerned should they be?

When the 2021-22 NHL season began the Vegas Golden Knights were not only viewed as a slam dunk playoff team, they were the runaway favorites to win a Pacific Division that looked short on contending teams.

Add the in-season addition of Jack Eichel to the mix, and they should be one of the top Stanley Cup contenders in the entire league. Crazy how quickly things can change.

After dropping back-to-back games over the weekend, including a very ugly loss to the Arizona Coyotes, the Golden Knights now find themselves in third place in the Pacific Division, losing ground to both the Calgary Flames and Los Angeles Kings, and suddenly on the playoff bubble in the Western Conference overall.

It is, quite frankly, one of the most stunning developments in the league this season.

As of Sunday evening the Golden Knights are six points back of Calgary for the top spot in the Pacific (while Calgary still has two games in hand), three points behind the Kings (in the same number of games played), only one point ahead of Edmonton (same number of games), and only three points ahead of Anaheim. Expanding things to the Wild Card side of things, Dallas is also just one point back with a game in hand.

The bottom of the Western Conference playoff race is a fight, and Vegas now finds itself right in the middle of it.

The Golden Knights have been one of the league’s most successful teams since entering the NHL in 2017-18 and have an ownership group and front office that is willing to do anything in its quest to get over the hump and win a Stanley Cup. Sitting on the playoff bubble and fighting just to get in the playoffs is not where anybody expected them to be three quarters of the way through the season.

A lot of the problems started in