New Golden Knights Head Coach Ryan Craig Says the Team Is Starting Over

by Ryan Rose

What Happened

Craig spoke with NHL.com on September 14, days before training camp opened, and he did not hide behind coach-speak. He said the team is starting over. He also said he expects real internal competition during a shortened camp, which is his way of telling 66 players that jobs are open and nothing carries over from last spring.

The specifics are where it gets interesting. Craig said he plans to play both goaltenders rather than riding one starter into the ground. Around the league, that idea has been gaining ground for years, because the schedule is brutal and a fresh goalie in March is worth more than a tired goalie with a prettier games-played number. For Vegas, it means the crease is a rotation, not a throne.

On defense, Craig wants a puck-mover on each pair. That is a structural choice, not a personnel favor. If every pairing has at least one player who can take the puck off the wall and move it north with a pass instead of a rim, the breakout gets faster and the forwards spend less time chasing. He also wants defensemen more involved in the offense, which usually means more activation off the blue line and more shots from the point that are meant to be shots, not just plays to keep the puck in.

The Jack Eichel note is the one fans will argue about longest. Craig wants Eichel to be more of a shooter on the power play. Eichel is one of the best playmakers in the sport, and playmakers tend to pass first out of habit. A coach asking him to fire more is a coach telling penalty killers they can no longer sell out to take away the pass.

All of this is being installed on a compressed calendar. GM Kelly McCrimmon announced the 2026 training camp roster on September 16, and it is a big group: 66 players, including 36 forwards, 23 defensemen and 7 goaltenders. Opening practices ran Thursday, September 17, at City National Arena in Summerlin, at 1550 S. Pavilion Center Drive. Every on-ice session there is free and open to the public.

The preseason home slate is short too. Vegas hosts the Utah Mammoth at T-Mobile Arena on September 24 and the San Jose Sharks on September 26, both at 7 p.m. Pacific. That is not much runway for a first-time head coach putting in a new system with a roster that also has young names like Braeden Bowman and Trevor Connelly pushing for time.

Hockey players running a practice drill on an indoor rink, the kind of session open to the public at City National Arena in Summerlin

Why It Matters to Las Vegas Residents

Start with the simple part. Hockey in this valley is a family activity now, not a novelty. Camp practices at City National Arena are free, which means a parent in Summerlin can take two kids to watch an NHL team work for the cost of parking and a soft pretzel. In a city where a night out can run a few hundred dollars fast, free matters.

There is also a practical reason to care about what Craig is installing. A team that plays both goalies and pushes defensemen into the offense tends to play a faster, higher-event style. That usually makes for better television and a louder building. If you buy tickets a few times a year, the product on the ice is about to feel different, and you will notice it by November.

Then there is the economic layer. T-Mobile Arena draws people to the south end of the Strip 41 nights a year before the playoffs even start. Restaurants, rideshare drivers, arena staff and nearby retail all ride that calendar. A team that stays interesting into the spring keeps that money circulating. A team that fades in February does not. Nobody is going to move to Henderson because of a power play tweak, but the health of the franchise touches a lot of local paychecks.

For families with kids in the game, the trickle-down is real. When the NHL team emphasizes puck-moving defensemen, youth programs in the valley follow. Coaches at the rink level start teaching skating and passing out of the zone instead of just chipping and chasing. Parents who have been driving to practices at City National Arena and the other valley rinks for years know how fast those habits change once the big club changes its message.

There is a scheduling angle too. A coach who rotates goaltenders is usually planning ahead for back-to-back nights and long road trips, and that shows up in how a team looks at home in the second half. Fans who buy a 10-game plan or split season tickets with a neighbor care about that more than they realize. Nobody wants to spend a February evening watching a tired club go through the motions because one goalie has played 48 straight games.

And there is the identity piece, which is hard to put a number on. This franchise has been the thing Las Vegas points at when people say the city has no roots. Season ten with a first-time head coach is a test of whether that identity belongs to a system, a roster, or the city itself. My money is on the city, but the next eight months will tell.

Hockey players taking a break at an indoor rink between shifts, the everyday scene at Las Vegas valley ice rinks in September

Background and History

To understand why "starting over" landed the way it did, you have to remember where the season ended. Vegas lost Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final to Carolina in June. That is as close as a team gets without finishing the job. Most organizations in that spot talk about continuity and unfinished business. Vegas changed coaches three days later.

Craig got the job on June 17. It is his first NHL head coaching position, and the timing tells you the organization had a plan ready rather than a reaction. This is a front office that has never been shy about making the hard call early, and Golden Knights fans have watched that pattern since the first season.

Around the coaching change, the roster has been moving too. Captain Mark Stone signed a two-year extension and said at camp that he plans to retire a Golden Knight, which puts a stable voice in the room for a new coach. Ryan Reaves, a fan favorite from the early years who still lives in Las Vegas, retired this month after 16 NHL seasons. One era is closing while another one gets handed the keys.

It is worth remembering how new all of this still is. The Golden Knights played their first game in October 2017, in a city that had been told for years it could not support a major league team because the population was too transient and too tied to tourism. Ten seasons later the arena is full, the valley rinks are booked, and a coaching hire is front-page conversation at local coffee shops. That turnaround happened faster here than almost anywhere in modern American sports.

The bigger context is the franchise's own history. Vegas has never had a rebuilding year in the traditional sense. It arrived, it contended, it won, and it kept contending. So when a new head coach uses a phrase like starting over, it does not mean tearing down the roster. It means resetting habits and expectations on a team that has been running the same way for a long time. Those are two very different things, and the difference is going to get lost in a lot of arguments this fall.

Coach explaining tactics on a coaching board during a break, illustrating the system changes Ryan Craig is installing in a shortened camp

What Happens Next

The next two weeks are the whole audition. Camp practices continue at City National Arena in Summerlin, free to watch, and that is where the new structure actually gets taught. Preseason games follow at T-Mobile Arena on September 24 against the Utah Mammoth and September 26 against the San Jose Sharks, both at 7 p.m. Pacific.

Watch the goalie usage first. If Craig splits preseason starts evenly and then keeps splitting them in October, the tandem plan is real. If one goalie starts taking four of every five games by Halloween, the plan quietly became a preference. Goalie rotations are easy to promise in September and hard to hold when a team drops three in a row.

Watch the defense pairs next. Craig said he wants a puck-mover on each one, and a 23-defenseman camp roster gives him room to try combinations. Young defensemen in a big camp group, including names like Juho Piiparinen, get a real look in this kind of setup, because the coach is auditioning a skill set and not just a depth chart. Pay attention to who is on the ice when Vegas is defending a one-goal lead late, because that is where a coach shows you who he actually trusts.

Roster cuts are the other thing to follow. A 66-player camp gets trimmed fast, and the names that survive the first round tell you what a coach values. If puck-moving defensemen and faster forwards stick around while heavier veterans get reassigned, that is the plan showing up in the transaction wire instead of in a press conference.

The power play is the fastest scoreboard test. If Eichel's shot totals on the man advantage jump in October, the message took. If the unit still runs everything through one extra pass, that is a habit that needs a longer runway. Either way, the numbers will be public within a month, and this valley will have opinions about all of it long before Thanksgiving.

Ryan's Take

I have watched this town go from a place with no pro team to a place where kids wear hockey jerseys to school in September. That is ten years of work, and a lot of it happened because this franchise refused to be patient. Hiring a first-time head coach three days after a Cup Final loss is exactly that same impatience, and I respect it even if it makes fans nervous.

From where I sit in real estate, the Golden Knights have done something for Las Vegas that marketing money cannot buy. When I work with families relocating here, the arena and the youth rinks come up constantly. A family moving from Minnesota or Michigan wants to know where their kid can skate. A buyer looking in Summerlin asks how far City National Arena is. That kind of question did not exist here in 2016.

So no, a coaching change does not move home values in Spring Valley or Green Valley. But the reason people feel like Las Vegas is a real city with real seasons and real Saturday nights has a lot to do with what happens inside these buildings. A new coach saying the team is resetting is a sign the organization still cares about being good, not just being here. That matters to a place that spent decades being treated like a stopover.

A coach and players during an indoor ice arena training session, similar to Golden Knights camp workouts in Las Vegas

What You Can Do

If you want to see the new system before anyone has an opinion about it, go watch a camp practice. Sessions at City National Arena, 1550 S. Pavilion Center Drive in Summerlin, are free and open to the public. Check the team's schedule the morning of, because camp times move, and bring a jacket. The building is cold on purpose.

If you want the full game experience, the two preseason home dates at T-Mobile Arena are September 24 against the Utah Mammoth and September 26 against the San Jose Sharks, both at 7 p.m. Pacific. Preseason tickets are almost always the cheapest of the year, which makes those two nights the best value on the entire calendar for a family testing whether hockey is their thing.

If you have a kid who wants to play, this is the right month to ask. Valley rinks run learn-to-skate and youth programs that fill up in the fall, and the staff at those rinks are usually happy to talk through gear costs before you spend a dollar. You do not need to commute to a different state to raise a hockey kid anymore, and that is still a new sentence in Las Vegas.

Finally, if you are new to the valley and trying to figure out where your family fits, sports are an easy door. Free camp practices, cheap preseason tickets, and a youth program at a nearby rink give you a way to meet people without joining anything formal. I have watched more than one relocating family find their first Las Vegas friends in a cold lobby at seven in the morning, holding coffee while their kids learn to stop on skates.

Have questions about how this affects your home or neighborhood? Reach out to Ryan Rose or text/call 702-747-5921 anytime.