Making their NHL debut in the 2017-18 season, the Vegas Golden Knights are one of the newest teams to join the league. This young but scrappy squad took the world of professional hockey by storm during their inaugural season, easily becoming one of the biggest sports stories of the year.

Nobody expects a brand new expansion team to dominate the league their first year on the ice. Even with the Golden Knights benefitting from expansion draft rules, most onlookers assumed that Sin City’s first pro sports team would take at least a few years to get their feet under them. But the Golden Knights surprised us all.

Out of the gate strong

Vegas played like a team possessed. Their season started strong with some surprising wins, and the victories kept coming. Even as injuries mounted — three goalies were benched early in the season — the Golden Knights persisted. As one of the loudest rinks in the country, the newly-constructed T-Mobile Arena didn’t hurt the team’s momentum, either. Visiting teams were often distracted and disoriented due to the sheer volume of the crowd, giving Vegas a leg up.

Between their home turf advantage and unshattered tenacity, Vegas won game after game. They claimed the Pacific Division in their first season, breaking records the whole way and eventually making it all the way to the Stanley Cup. It was only after five challenging battles against the Washington Capitals that their tank ran dry. Not bad for a team that didn’t exist the year before!

The house always wins

The Golden Knights made some odd choices during the expansion draft, most of which were dismissed or ignored by the competition. And yet their risky bets paid off in a major way. Among their smartest picks were the Penguins’ Marc Andre Fleury and the Blue Jackets’ William Karlsson. Fleury turned out to have a career-defining season all the way through the playoffs, while Karlsson scored an impressive 43 goals for Vegas that year.

So what does the future hold for Vegas? Based on their inaugural year’s performance, all eyes will be on the team to see if they’ll hold tight to success or end up a flash in the pan. No bet is ever a sure thing, though, as anyone from Vegas can tell you. Either way, the Golden Knights are young and hungry — and they’re not afraid to push themselves to the limit to get things done.