The Las Vegas area has become a hub for the sports world in the last couple of decades; local teams inch closer to a title by the day. The only real question left to ask is, who will be the lucky team to reach a championship?
Let’s start by using the process of elimination. Unfortunately for the Las Vegas Lights FC and the Las Vegas Aviators, they are years or maybe even a decade away from a championship. Of course, there is a slight chance that both teams draft key players and make a run at a title, but that seems more like an outlier than a sure bet.
Now that we got the pretenders out of the way, we need to start eliminating some of the less than stellar contenders as well. With this being the Raiders’ first season in Las Vegas, it doesn’t seem like they are poised for a championship just yet. Now, that doesn’t mean they won’t win their division and make the playoffs, but there are still better teams that can take them out.
While a lot of people would have probably thought the Raiders would be Las Vegas’ first championship team, it’s actually the Golden Knights and the Aces that sports fans should be keeping their eye on. They seem to be closer than any of the other teams on this list.
The Las Vegas Aces have gone 8-2 at the time of this writing, defeating the team that eliminated them from the playoffs last year. Keep in mind that this comes without star players Kelsey Plum and Liz Cambage.
And then there are the Las Vegas Golden Knights. The team that is up 3-1 in the first round of the playoffs at this point and is looking poised for a deep playoff run. They even have star scorer Max Pacioretty back on the ice after undergoing rehab, which means that the team is firing on all cylinders right now.
The problem for the Golden Knights though, is the fact that they can’t seem to decide between Marc Andre Fleury and Robin Lehner. Interestingly enough, Lehner started off promising enough with a save percentage of over .900, but he was responsible for the team’s 3-1 loss to the Blackhawks. With that in mind, Lehner could be a liability moving forward, which means a change might have to be made.
In the end, the Golden Knights and the Aces are neck and neck to win a championship, but the women’s basketball team seems to deserve the nod in this case. Not only is that evident by how they eviscerated competition in their path, especially after beating their playoff rival by double digits, but also by how little problem they are having doing so.
The Golden Knights will come up a close second in this case, mainly due to their problem at the goalie position, but that could be rectified by a change at the net. As for the Las Vegas Raiders, however, their chances are a bit further off after their 7-9 record last season, and they are going to need to put in a lot of work to reach a championship-caliber level.
