A clip of the Golden Knights skating past their backup, Adin Hill, without the usual fist bump is making the rounds, and it's not a good look.
The moment is small but pointed. Players file off, nobody taps Hill, and the goalie is left standing there alone.
The reaction was immediate. "GET HIM OUT OF THEREEEEEE," one post said, capturing the secondhand embarrassment of watching it.
Here's the fair counter, and it matters. This came right after a crushing Stanley Cup Final loss. A team that just watched the Cup get lifted on its own ice might be too gutted to do much of anything.
So read it carefully. Devastation isn't the same as disrespect.
The clip shows the players gliding past the bench, heads down, leaving Hill hanging without a single tap.
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Still, it traveled because the contrast was sitting right there for everyone to see.
Kevin Papetti put it bluntly, pointing to a huge difference between how Carolina treats its non-regulars and whatever this was.
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Carolina's culture made the contrast impossible to miss
That comparison stings because the Hurricanes just showed the opposite. Backup Brandon Bussi got his own moment, won a Final game, and choked up talking about his family while his teammates embraced it.
That's a team valuing every man on the roster. The Vegas image, fair or not, looked like the inverse.
And Hill wasn't a stranger to this run. He carried a $6.25 million cap hit and was part of the Golden Knights' crease committee all spring. He earned better than a cold shoulder.
Here's my read, with the caveat it deserves. One clip after a gutting loss isn't a full verdict on a team's character. Raw grief does strange things to people.
But optics matter, especially next to a champion's culture on full display. The contrast was unflattering, and Vegas couldn't have picked a worse moment for it.
Small things like this stick in a fanbase's memory after a season ends in heartbreak. They replay differently when the result hurts.
Whether it says anything real about the Vegas room, or was just devastation in motion, is for the people inside it to know. From the outside, it simply looked lonely for Adin Hill.
Was leaving Adin Hill hanging a bad look, or just post-loss devastation?
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