Vegas Golden Knights Accused Of Sabotaging Winnipeg Jets' Exercise Bikes

The Vegas Golden Knights have a solid home-ice advantage at T-Mobile Arena (granted it didn't help them in Game 1) but they're allegedly going to great lengths to mess with the Winnipeg Jets.

Winnipeg took a statement win on the road in Game 1, defeating the top-seeded Golden Knights 5-1. They overcame a lot including a scary injury to forward Morgan Barron.

According to Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast with Jeff Marek, the Golden Knights allegedly tampered with the Winnipeg Jets' exercise bikes.

"So the story making the rounds today is that on the exercise bike outside the Jets dressing room, the pedals were missing," Friedman said.

This rumor wasn't well-received by some around the league. Friedman said he heard from one GM who was particularly livid at the alleged gamesmanship. The anonymous GM told Friedman that this sort of thing has no place in the game.

I agree with that GM... but also I kind of love it.

The Jets won Game 1 of their opening round series with the Golden Knights, even without exercise bike pedals. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Golden Knights Are Playing Some Old-Time Hockey

It's such an old-school, Danbury Trashers-like thing to do. I mean, it's not buying a fresh fish and putting it in the visitors' locker room vents, but it's still good.

Players like to hop on those bikes to get warmed up or even stay warm during games.

Friedman also mentioned that this is not the first time there has been some gamesmanship between the teams. In 2018 — the first time they met in the postseason — Vegas was accused of keeping the practice rink lights off until the moment the Jets took the ice. That prevented the Jets from taking the ice early

Marek pointed out that this sort of thing was fairly common back in what some like to call "the day."

He alluded to the Toronto Toros of the WHA, using a similar lights-off trick back in the 1970s.

But that was the borderline lawless WHA, and this is the modern NHL. having said that, wouldn't you do whatever you could for a Stanley Cup ring?

We'll see if anything comes of this, or if the Jets can even prove who stole the bike pedals.

Follow on Twitter: @Matt_Reigle