A year ago at this time, the Vegas Golden Knights didn't have a single player on their roster. Now, they're headed to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season.

The Golden Knights wrapped up a gentleman's sweep of the Winnipeg Jets on Sunday, taking their Western Conference Final series four games to one. As a result, the NHL's newest team becomes the first expansion team in all of sports to reach the championship round since the St. Louis Blues did it in 1968.

It must be noted that the Blues faced a different set of circumstances when they advanced to the Stanley Cup Final back then. It was the first season that the NHL had expanded beyond the Original Six, and the Blues were one of six expansion teams placed in their own conference. The Blues entered the postseason in a field of eight, and they went on to be swept by the Montreal Canadiens in the Cup Final.

The Golden Knights, meanwhile, are the league's lone expansion team this season, and they entered the playoffs as one of 16 teams vying for the Cup.

They've put on a stunning performance throughout the postseason, going 12-3 through the first three rounds and making rather quick work of the Jets, who were considered to be one of the best teams in not only the conference, but in the entire NHL.

The Knights have gotten stellar contributions from their top line of William Karlsson, Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith, but their leading candidate for Conn Smythe at this point is undoubtedly goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. The veteran goaltender, who won three Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins before being selected by Vegas in last summer's expansion draft, has posted a .947 save percentage throughout the playoffs so far.

The Golden Knights entered the regular season with 500-1 odds of winning the Stanley Cup. Now they're just four wins away from defying those long odds. </s> What happens in Vegas … may never happen again.

The Vegas Golden Knights, who officially did not exist 15 months ago, are four victories away from winning the Stanley Cup.

That’s right: The NHL’s latest expansion team, expected to flounder in its inaugural season, has reached the Stanley Cup Final after dispatching the Winnipeg Jets in five games in the Western Conference finals.

How can we wrap our minds around this historic achievement? Let’s start here: In the modern era, Vegas is the first expansion team in the four major sports — NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB — to even post a winning record in its first season.

The NHL’s last two expansion franchises — the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild — won 28 and 25 games, respectively, during their first season in 2000-01. The Golden Knights went 51-24-7 this season to finish with the NHL’s fifth-best record.

How about the postseason? No expansion club in any sport has ever won a title in its first season, but have any even reached the championship round?

There’s one: The 1968 St. Louis Blues, who were one of six teams to added to the NHL when it expanded from six to 12 franchises. But those Blues needed to win just one playoff series to make the Stanley Cup Final and were swept by the Montreal Canadiens in the championship.

The Golden Knights, meanwhile, have rolled to a 12-3 record in the playoffs, taking a roster of other teams’ cast-offs to heights not seen by 17 other major franchises in their entire histories.

Did we mention the Detroit Lions have been around since 1930?

Fittingly enough, Vegas also is a good barometer of Vegas’ absurd run. The Golden Knights began the regular season with 500-1 odds to win the Stanley Cup and had long odds throughout the season, which could mean absurdly large paydays if they can knock off the winner of the Tampa Bay Lightning-Washington Capitals Eastern Conference finals.

Even if they fall short in the Stanley Cup Final, the Golden Knights will be remembered as the greatest expansion franchise ever. But if they manage to win it all, they’ll go down as one of the best stories in sports — period. </s> The Vegas Golden Knights, an expansion NHL team in its first season, beat all the odds and made it to the finals of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

And we're going to turn now to hockey and an incredible Cinderella story.

GREENE: That's the sound outside an arena on the Las Vegas Strip last night. Fans of the Vegas Golden Knights were watching as their team beat the Winnipeg Jets to reach hockey's Stanley Cup final.

DAN D'UVA: (Yelling) A (unintelligible) feed. And it goes wide. And that's it. It's over. The Knights are going to the Stanley Cup Final.

JIM HUGHSON: The incredible journey continues for the Vegas Golden Knights.

KENNY ALBERT: Two hundred and twenty-seven days after their first regular season game in franchise history, the Vegas Golden Knights are headed to the Stanley Cup Final.

OK. The announcers sound a little excited, but this is exciting. An expansion franchise in the very first season, a team made up of castaway players not wanted by other teams, and here they are even though they've been calling themselves the misfits.

GREENE: Yeah, the misfits, but coaching and chemistry and some unbelievable goaltending saw them set the league on fire.

INSKEEP: Jonathan Marchessault is on his fourth NHL team in five years but is now leading scorer in the playoffs.

JONATHAN MARCHESSAULT: We went against the odds all year. We're going to keep doing what we do best. I mean, it's just prove people wrong. And whoever we're facing, we're probably not going to be favorite next round. So it's just the way it goes, and that's fine with that.

GREENE: And this is what makes this story even more special. The Golden Knights bonded with this city in a moment of tragedy. Their first-ever game last October came just days after the mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead.

INSKEEP: Yeah, Vegas goalie Marc-Andre Fleury says the team was happy to be a rallying point.

MARC-ANDRE FLEURY: It was a big moment, obviously, in the city. And I think as a team, if we - you know, we couldn't, you know, heal anybody, you know? But if we could just change their mind a bit, you know, throughout those first few weeks and throughout the season and get them to be proud of their team, cheering for something - you know? - they can - I'm happy that we're able to provide a little bit of that, you know, to Vegas.

GREENE: And now this team, the Golden Knights, could be Stanley Cup champions if they can pull off four more wins. </s> In a city where Frank Sinatra crooned, the Rat Pack roamed, Sugar Ray Leonard fought and Liberace headlined, the Golden Knights are proving to be one of the most celebrated acts in Las Vegas history.

The expansion Golden Knights defeated the Winnipeg Jets 2-1 on Sunday to win the Western Conference final in five games and earn an improbable berth to the Stanley Cup Final.

Fourth-liner Ryan Reaves, a Winnipeg native who was acquired at the trade deadline from the Pittsburgh Penguins in a complicated three-team deal, scored the game-winning goal in the second period.

If the Golden Knights triumph against either the Tampa Bay Lightning or Washington Capitals, they would be considered one of the most unlikely champions in sports history.

We are talking Buster Douglas taking down Mike Tyson, the 1969 New York "Miracle Mets" or No. 8-seed Villanova beating Georgetown to win the 1985 NCAA championship.

Historically, expansion teams are set up to initially fail. In the modern era, the Golden Knights, who went 51-24-7 in the regular season, are the first expansion team in the four major sports to post a winning record. The last two NHL expansion teams, the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild, won 28 and 25 games, respectively, in 2000-01.

Most experts predicted the Golden Knights would finish among the league's worst teams. Nobody believed they could finish with the fifth-best record.

The Golden Knights might be the best team story in the NHL since the Wayne Gretzky-led Edmonton Oilers rewrote the record book in the 1980s with four Stanley Cups in five seasons.

It is a feel-good tale. The Las Vegas community and the team bonded before the first puck was dropped because of the Oct. 1 tragedy that saw 58 people die in a mass shooting during a concert in the city.

As team members supported the victims' families and first responders, the connection with fans grew stronger. On opening night, Vegas defenseman Deryk Engelland made an emotional, inspirational speech at center ice that will never be forgotten.

The community was strong, and it turned out the team was strong on the ice. With speed, passion and aggressiveness, the Golden Knights have played a perfect style for this era of hockey.

The Golden Knights have become just as unique in their presentation of the game, using theatrics and creativity at T-Mobile Arena. Laser shows. Elvis impersonators. Showgirls. Skits. Swordplay. Wayne Newton. Humorous comedy bits on the video screen. A castle in the stands.

All of the players are popular, but none more so than goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, the former Pittsburgh Penguins star who has launched the second act of his career in Las Vegas.

Although the Golden Knights' success has been an exciting story line, not everyone is celebrating it.

Some fans believe winning should take time. They point out important franchises have never won a Stanley Cup. The storied Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won since 1967.

The NHL changed the player-protection rules in the expansion draft to give the Golden Knights a greater opportunity at forming a better roster than previous expansion teams.

The 30 other teams were allowed to protect seven forwards and three defensemen and one goalie or eight forwards/defensemen and one goalie.

That means the Golden Knights, in theory, landed the 10th- or 12th-best player on every team’s roster.

They were supposed to get third-line forwards and No. 4 defensemen, but they did better than that because general manager George McPhee shrewdly managed the assets to land first-liners James Neal, Jonathan Marchessault and William Karlsson and a top goalie in Fleury.

The Golden Knights have earned this impossible dream trip to the Stanley Cup Final. </s> Harry How/Getty Images(LAS VEGAS) – The Vegas Golden Knights went into their inaugural season with a plan most expansion teams follow: form the best roster possible with a mix of veterans and young players while amassing draft picks in an effort to build for future success. Ironically, and luckily for Vegas, things did not go according to plan.

A mix of seasoned veterans like Marc-Andre Fleury and James Neal combined with impressive performances by young players like William Karlsson not only allowed Vegas to be serviceable in the Western Conference, but be viewed as one of the most dangerous teams in the league. The misfit bunch soared to the top of the standings early on in the year and almost never looked back, stunning its fans and the league as a whole.

Golden Knights general manager George McPhee soon realized come the trade deadline the team wouldn’t be looking to add more future draft picks, but build this young team for a playoff run. Acquisitions of Ryan Reaves and Tomas Tatar helped fill out the depth in the roster, allowing Vegas to be the first team to clinch a playoff berth in its inaugural season since the 1979-80 Whalers and Oilers.

If the story stopped there it would already be a fairytale, but it hasn’t. Vegas opened the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Los Angeles Kings, a team known for upsetting top seeds in recent years, and made an emphatic statement, sweeping them in four games. The Golden Knights became the first NHL team, and just the third team in the four major sports, to sweep its first every playoff series.

With the shooting tragedy that occurred in Vegas in October, the Golden Knights were there to give the people of Sin City a way to escape, even just for a few hours, and rallied behind people who so desperately needed a reason to smile. The Golden Knights are an amazing story already, not only for just the NHL, but for the city of Las Vegas. And, the Cinderella story is not over yet. </s> Ryan Reaves scored the winning goal, Marc-Andre Fleury made 31 saves and the Vegas Golden Knights pushed their remarkable expansion season into the Stanley Cup Final, beating the Winnipeg Jets 2-1 on Sunday in Game 5 of the Western Conference final.

Alex Tuch also scored for the Knights. They lost Game 1 in Winnipeg before winning four straight to become the first expansion team since the 1968 St. Louis Blues — when the six initial expansion teams were put alone in the West — to get to the final.

Vegas will meet the Tampa Bay Lightning or the Washington Capitals in the final. Tampa Bay leads the Eastern Conference final 3-2, with Game 6 set for Monday night in Washington.

Josh Morrissey scored for the Jets, and Connor Hellebuyck made 30 saves. </s> An improbable goal-scorer lifted an improbable champion into the Stanley Cup finals. Ryan Reaves’ tie-breaking goal in the second period on Sunday helped the Vegas Golden Knights to edge the Winnipeg Jets 2-1, clinching the Western Conference title for Vegas in their first season of existence.

A roster consisting almost entirely of other teams’ castoffs will meet either Tampa Bay or Washington for the Stanley Cup. The Lightning lead the Eastern Conference championship series 3-2, with Game 6 scheduled for Monday night in Washington.

Reaves’ first goal of this postseason, and just his second career playoff goal, came early in the second period. Luca Sbisa took a wrister from the point that deflected off one stick before Reaves got his blade on it, tipping it off the crossbar and over the goal line. The Golden Knights defended the lead fiercely from that point, getting 31 saves from Marc-Andre Fleury and keeping the Jets from overrunning their defensive zone, even when Winnipeg pulled goalie Connor Hellebuyck for a sixth skater in the last two minutes.

Vegas became the first expansion team to reach the Cup finals since the St Louis Blues, who played in a division of nothing but expansion teams after the NHL grew from six to 12 teams prior to the 1967-68 season.

As they have done throughout the series, the Golden Knights started fast. A failed clearance by Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey found the stick of Alex Tuch in the high slot. He wheeled and wired a wrister past Hellebuyck at 5:11 of the first period for his sixth playoff goal. Vegas had a 15-3 advantage in shot attempts in the first nine minutes, but Winnipeg finally found some traction as its sellout crowd roared to life.

Morrissey atoned for his mistake by tying the game at 17:14 of the first with his first playoff goal. Bryan Little’s clean faceoff win found its way to Morrissey for a one-timer over Fleury’s glove. </s> LOS ANGELES -- One year ago, the Vegas Golden Knights had no players on their roster, and Gerard Gallant was four days into his new job as the first head coach of the expansion team.

On Tuesday, Vegas became the first franchise in NHL history to sweep a postseason series in its inaugural season when it defeated the Los Angeles Kings 1-0.

The Golden Knights will face the winner of the San Jose Sharks-Anaheim Ducks series in the next round. San Jose leads the series 3-0.

It already has been a historic season for the Golden Knights, after they took the Pacific Division to become the first modern-era expansion team in the NHL, NBA, NFL or MLB to win its division in its inaugural season, excluding mergers and all-expansion divisions.

The Golden Knights are now continuing to rewrite the record books in the postseason. With Tuesday's sweep, they became just the third team in the NHL, NBA or MLB to complete a four-game sweep in its first playoff series. The Pittsburgh Penguins did so in 1970 against the Oakland Seals, and MLB's Boston Braves pulled off the feat in 1914 against the Philadelphia Athletics.

A big reason for Vegas' success this season and in the playoffs so far has been the play of goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, who was selected by Vegas in the expansion draft after he helped the Penguins win the Stanley Cup three times. Fleury now has 66 career postseason victories, and he passed Dominik Hasek (65) for 11th in NHL history among goaltenders. Tuesday's effort was Fleury's 12th career postseason shutout, tied with Terry Sawchuk for 10th-most in NHL history.

"You guys remind us or tell us about those records, but it's not something that we talk about or shoot for," Fleury said. "All season long, I didn't know any records about expansion teams. We just do what a regular team would. We just play the game and try to win. That's it."

Few expected much from Vegas coming into this season. Many had the Golden Knights pegged as the worst team in the league following the expansion draft that netted them the likes of Fleury, James Neal, Jonathan Marchessault, Deryk Engelland, David Perron, William Karlsson, Nate Schmidt, Erik Haula, Cody Eakin, William Carrier and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare.

The star and the face of the franchise was always going to be Fleury, but no one thought he would become the catalyst for another Stanley Cup contender so soon in the process.

"He had experience winning three Stanley Cups being with the Pittsburgh Penguins all those years. We knew when we got him we got a superstar goaltender. We knew that," Gallant said. "He has carried our team a lot. He makes our team better and confident, and it all started with the first 10 games of the season, when we were 8-2. He's a big part of our group."

The Golden Knights swept the Kings despite scoring seven total goals in the series and by allowing only three goals from Los Angeles. Vegas' seven goals are two fewer than any other team has scored in a best-of-seven sweep in NHL history.

"It feels great," Marchessault said. "All of us, we came in with a chip on our shoulder, and we're just looking at the next game ahead of us. When we play right away, I think we can go far, but we cannot look too far right now. We've got to look at the next game and be able to cash in the rest that we're going to have here and be ready when the second round starts."

The game-winning goal on Tuesday came from Brayden McNabb, who played the previous three seasons for the Kings before being selected by Vegas in the expansion draft. It was McNabb's first postseason goal.

"I'm not a huge offensive guy, but to get a goal and get our team going felt pretty good. I was just happy to get the team going," he said.

As Vegas prepared to leave Staples Center after the franchise's first playoff series win and sweep Tuesday night, Gallant couldn't help but recall the incredible journey of his first year as the team's first head coach.

"It's unreal," Gallant said. "When you think back to early October when the season started, we were thinking about competing and playing hard, and now all of a sudden, we're moving on to the second round of the playoffs. We're playing good hockey, and we got experienced guys and a good hockey team, so we're pretty proud of it and real happy.

"We'll have a week off here to get ready for the next one. It's awesome. It's been a great feeling." </s> Viva Las Vegas and those who took a massive chance by putting their money on the Golden Knights before the season began.

The Golden Knights are only four wins away from hoisting up the Stanley Cup in their first season of existence. And it’s worth noting that this expansion team is making its inaugural season playoff run look effortless.

The Golden Knights swept the Kings in Round 1, had six-game triumph over the Sharks in the second round and only needed five games against the Jets to capture the Western Conference Finals.

No one saw this coming.

NHL pundits thought it was an impossible feat for an expansion team and Vegas bookies put the odds against the Golden Knights. Hell, even the Golden Knights owner Bill Foley told ESPN at the beginning of the season that he didn’t plan to have his team make it to the playoffs in three season, let alone contend for the Stanley Cup for at least another six seasons.

With 500-1 odds, the Golden Knights were practically the longest of long shots to win the Stanley Cup before the season began. If someone put down a modest $20 on the Golden Knights to win the Cup, they could see a $10,020 payout. And the number increases dramatically once you get into the triple-digit bets.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell took to Twitter to see who all could take home some serious cash if Vegas in fact finishes its inaugural season on top:
The Vegas Golden Knights become the first expansion team to make the Stanley Cup Finals in their first season since 1968, a season in which one of the six teams that entered the league was guaranteed to reach the final.