The Las Vegas Golden Knights have a wild opening week of the playoffs, Kyle Busch takes the win at Talladega and the Raiders toy with drafting a quarterback. All this and more last week in Las Vegas Sports (Apr 17 – 23).
The Golden Knights defeated the Winnipeg Jets 5-4 in triple overtime on Saturday to take a 2-1 series lead. Las Vegas knocked in two goals per period in the first and second but went scoreless in the third. This is where the Jets would score three straight goals to force overtime.
The Golden Knights and Jets battled it out for three overtime periods before Michael Amadio hit the game-winning shot! He finished with one goal, one assist, and two shots on goal. Jack Eichel played a big role in the game with two goals, one assist, and seven shots on goal. Laurent Brossoit tended the net and deflected 30 out of 34 shots.
Chandler Stephenson and Keegan Kolesar also scored, contributing to 11 points scored so far in the series. Unfortunately for Las Vegas, they have let 12 goals slide past them in the first round. That includes a 5-1 blowout to start the playoffs last week.
The Oakland Athletics and the City of Oakland have been in a gridlock for over a year now about whether to build a new stadium. Unfortunately for Oakland, the Athletics announced on Wednesday that they had signed an agreement to purchase land in Las Vegas. This move marks the second time a team has relocated from Oakland in three years.
“When you think about what makes for a successful market, you have to have a strong local fan base,” Oakland Athletics President Dave Kaval said when asked by ESPN why he chose Las Vegas. “The 2.3 million people are rabid sports fans. … That’s one reason we picked the site we picked: It’s easy to get to for locals.”
ESPN claims that at the time of this writing, the deal is not finalized yet but is very close. The property is described as 42 acres near the Las Vegas Strip that the Athletics hope to build a $500 million ballpark on top of. However, it could be a while before the move happens. Where the A’s play in 2025 is up in the air.
Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis, who relocated to Las Vegas in 2020, spoke with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and went off when asked about the Athletics’ move to Sin City. For those who don’t know, the two teams shared an Oakland stadium location in 2014 and got into a heated battle about what to do with it. Davis wanted to tear down and build, while A’s owner John Fisher wanted to sit on a ten-year lease.
“I won’t forget what they did to us in Oakland,” Davis told the Review-Journal. “They squatted on a lease for 10 years and made it impossible for us to build on that stadium. They marketed the team as ‘Rooted in Oakland,’ that’s been their mantra through the whole thing, “The slogans they’ve been using have been a slap to the face of the Raiders, and they were trying to win over that type of mentality in the Bay Area. Well all they did was f—k the Bay Area.”
Kyle Busch took home the win at Talladega on Sunday after ignoring his crew chief’s order to come and pit. The Las Vegas native made the decision after an overtime attempt went bad, and several cars careened into each other for a series of hard impacts. Once the caution came out, the team radioed for Busch to hit pit road for gas. Rowdy ignored the order however, and stayed on the track.
Many thought this would prompt Busch to run out of gas, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Rowdy took advantage of an ill-advised move at the front to drop into the first position. Busch then completed the mandated final caution lap without running out of gas and took the win.
This is Busch’s second win of the 2023 Cup Series season and will add to his playoff starting total. Although Busch’s win worked out great in the end, one has to wonder how Childress will feel about ignoring orders. That’s not the kind that will fly at RCR and could cause tension between the driver and owner.
The Las Vegas Raiders locked down Jimmy Garoppollo during the offseason, but they might be looking at a backup option. Some are even suggesting that the Raiders could draft CJ Stroud and make an attempt at developing him. General Manager Dave Ziegler spoke to the press about possibly drafting a QB and seemed very open to the idea.
“Anytime you can find a young player at that position that’s going to have an impact on your team, you have to keep an open mind to that,” Ziegler said via the Athletic. “Of course, we’re excited to have Jimmy. And having Jimmy does supply us with a very high-quality starting player on the position, so we feel comfortable with that, but I think to close that door and just say that that’s not something you would do because of X, Y, and Z, that’s not the business that we’re in.”
That might sound like great long-term thinking, but why would they do this after signing Brian Hoyer and Garoppollo? They even have Garoppollo signed to a three-year, $72 million deal that would look foolish if he didn’t get the starting job. Again, there are rumblings that they are looking to trade up for CJ Stroud, but who knows if that will come to fruition.
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