As a team which has made the playoffs in all six previous seasons, including one Championship, the Knights always have fairly high expectations upon them.  Despite their ability to seem to always be able to do what's needed to get to the postseason, New York really has not, in most senses, enjoyed true overall regular season success, only having had an even record in each of their past four seasons.  But it would be hard to argue that the Knights definitely can seem to perform when it most matters, despite having taken some dangerous routes, they have always made into the playoffs.

     New York has generally employed a fairly standard strategy of using a similar batch of strong players up top and supplementing them with some underrated young players at the bottom.  2011 looks to be no different as their top five players have all been a part of the team for at least the past two seasons.  Given their veterans' tremendous experience and history, it seems most likely that the Knights will be very solid on the higher boards so the key to their success may lie in their young, underrated players performing up to expectation, in particular SM Matt Herman, NM Leif Pressman, and NM Ben Gershenov, who all have significantly higher ratings than a year earlier.  But if they can, it would be tough to bet against New York at least being a playoff team yet again.