How the Golden Knights have taken over Las Vegas

As it turns out, Elvis never really left the building. In fact, he turned up often this season in the locker room of the Vegas Golden Knights.

Some teams honor players’ outstanding performances by giving them a replica of a boxing championship belt. Others award a sombrero or a cowboy hat. The Golden Knights, whose victory song is “Viva Las Vegas,” give key players an outrageously glossy Elvis wig and sunglasses.

For the Golden Knights, whose wonderfully over-the-top entertainment at T-Mobile Arena features knights in armor, Elvis impersonators and showgirls wearing team-themed headdresses but not much else, bonding over Elvis Presley — or a funny facsimile — makes perfect sense.

“Elvis is a pretty good representative of Vegas,” said forward Jack Eichel, who came up with the idea. “It’s always cool if you have something to wear, I think. I think it fit our group.”

It fits down to the last spangle on the jumpsuit of every self-respecting wannabe Elvis. “It’s Vegas. I don’t think I have to say anything else,” former King Alec Martinez said of the spectacle at home games. “I mean, Vegas, that’s exactly what you think of. The dancers, Elvis, loud music, gambling, people losing their dignity.”

Las Vegas loves glitz and glamour. It also loves the Golden Knights, who joined the NHL in 2017 and capitalized on generous expansion terms and clever maneuvering by then-general manager George McPhee to reach the 2018 Stanley Cup Final.

They lost to Washington in five games, but they can win the gleaming silver trophy on home ice Tuesday if they close out the Florida Panthers in Game 5. Only the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, who trailed Detroit 3-0, have come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Final. The plucky Panthers, who barely made the playoffs in the East before upsetting Boston, might be too banged up to muster one more big rally.

The atmosphere Tuesday will be crazy. More precisely, crazier than ever.

“It’s going to be loud in there. It always is….