7 reasons why the Golden Knights are the most hated team in the NHL

The Vegas Golden Knights aren't even a decade old as a franchise and yet, it's safe to say they're the most hated NHL team by hockey fans. We're deep into the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs now and the Golden Knights are set to face off against the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final. Since the Golden Knights became a franchise in the 2017-18 season, the team has been to five conference finals and have been a dominating force in the Pacific Division.

It's pretty rare for a young franchise to have such success early on, but the Golden Knights have made an impact from the first moment they stepped out onto the ice. Ahead of this year's Western Conference Final, a report from Rotowire showed that the Golden Knights are the most hated team across the United States, with 11 states marking Vegas down as the biggest villain of the NHL. While it tracks on a regional level, the report had many on social media talking about the overall distain for the Golden Knights that seems to permeate through hockey fandom as a whole.

So, let's take a look at some of the major reasons why the Golden Knights are the NHL's most-hated team after such a short period of time. 1. Expansion draft success Before the Golden Knights, the last time the NHL expanded was back in 2000 when the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Minnesota Wild became the 29th and 30th teams to grace the league.

So, it had been awhile since the NHL had done an expansion draft and it showed in how they dealt with the Golden Knights. In the 2017 expansion draft, NHL teams were allowed to protect either seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender or one goaltender and eight skaters regardless of their position. Those numbers were a drop off from the last expansion draft in an effort to make Vegas competitive much faster than Wild and Blue Jackets.