It was the second Friday of the NHL season and I was in Vegas to cover the early days of the Golden Knights. Vegas had gotten off to an unexpectedly good start — three consecutive wins — and it was almost all because of James “The Real Deal” Neal, the man who coined the term “Golden Misfits” to describe the varied collection of castoffs assembled by general manager George McPhee, that would go on to rewrite the NHL expansion record book.



Neal scored five (of the nine) goals in the three Vegas wins. All were game-winners — and he did all this while recovering from off-season hand surgery that was supposed to keep him out of the lineup until the middle of the month. But as coach Gerard Gallant later reported, Neal came to him just before the season opener and, in old-school fashion, told him: “I’ll be fine. Don’t listen to the trainers. Next thing I know, he was in our lineup.”



We had a long talk in the...