As we approach the end of the year, PHR continues its look at what teams are thankful for in 2022-23. There also might be a few things your team would like down the road. We’ll examine what’s gone well in the early going and what could improve as the season rolls on for the Vegas Golden Knights.
Who are the Golden Knights thankful for?
Their goaltenders
Chandler Stephenson, Jack Eichel, and Alex Pietrangelo are all averaging a point-per-game, Mark Stone isn’t far behind their pace while playing Selke level hockey, Reilly Smith leads the team with 17 goals, and despite some injury issues, the team is comfortably pacing the NHL’s Pacific Division. There’s plenty to be thankful for in Vegas, but perhaps none more than the goaltending duo of Logan Thompson and Adin Hill.
Neither netminder is finding himself in the Vezina conversation this year, at least not at the moment, but considering where the team stood coming into this season, both have been a revelation. At the outset, the Golden Knights expected to be without Robin Lehner for the entire season, and though they weren’t sure exactly when Laurent Brossoit would return, it wasn’t going to be for opening night. The team opted to roll with Thompson, the rookie and incumbent from last season who had an impressive finish to his 2021-22, carrying Vegas as far as he could go in pivotal games, just missing out on a playoff berth. Knowing he couldn’t go it alone, Vegas also acquired Hill from the San Jose Sharks in late August.
A career backup, Hill has continued in that role, filling it just as Vegas hoped, recording a .903 save-percentage and 2.66 goals-against average over 12 starts. That performance, along with the effort of those in front of him, has lead Hill to an 8-3-1 record in those games, fantastic for the team’s backup.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the undrafted Thompson has become one of the league’s best young netminders and has taken the reins for Vegas. As much as they’d like to have Lehner too, Thompson has made the case for his absence being a non-issue as of right now. Through 24 games, Thompson has compiled a .914 save-percentage and 2.66 goals-against average and his 16 wins are good enough for third in the entire NHL.
What are the Golden Knights thankful for?
An expected bump to the salary cap
When you think of the NHL’s cap crunch and the issues it presents, chances are you think of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Vegas Golden Knights off the bat. The organization has had to make several interesting moves in order to ice the team they wish and remain cap compliant, and just barely so. In recent years, those have consisted of trading away the then-Vezina Trophy winner Marc-Andre Fleury for virtually nothing and this offseason, trading Max Pacioretty and Dylan Coghlan away for quite literally nothing, while acquiring Shea Weber’s contract for LTIR purposes, sending Evgenii Dadonov the other way.
These moves have allowed Vegas to do what it needs to do in order to remain competitive, and though the Fleury and Pacioretty trades netted little in return, Vegas may argue that the cap space they received was the valuable return. Still, one may also argue that a team is at its best when it can keep all of its players, and that’s what the expected salary cap increase should do for Vegas. It may not let them acquire another Eichel or sign another Pietrangelo, and it can’t bring back Pacioretty or prime Fleury, but it can allow Eichel, Pietrangelo, Mark Stone, Shea Theodore, William Karlsson, and others to stay while eventually giving long-term extensions to others such as Chandler Stephenson and Jonathan Marchessault, who are both due after next season.
It’s still unclear when, how, and how much the cap will increase, but any little bit counts for Vegas and at present, they’ve been able to structure their roster so that issues likely won’t arise until they’re given a significant amount of additional space.
What would the Golden Knights be even more thankful for?
Health
To confuse the Golden Knights’ injury issues this season with the ones faced by the Columbus Blue Jackets or the Philadelphia Flyers, or their own issues from a year ago wouldn’t be fair. In fact, knock on wood, this season has been a vast improvement, and likely a big reason behind the team’s success. Still, Vegas has another 46 games to go plus playoffs, to stay healthy, with a number of somewhat concerning injuries.
For one, the team now has forward Brett Howden and defenseman Zach Whitecloud on LTIR with no clear return set for either of them. While not the team’s foremost stars, both players occupy important roles which are now filled by replacement players. The other primary injury concern is Eichel, who is on IR with a lower-body injury. There is some relief on that front as the injury appears unrelated to the issues that kept himl out for portions of the last two seasons, but every game missed by the superstar does put strain on the team’s offense. No timetable is clear on Eichel either, but remaining on IR as opposed to a transfer to LTIR, is encouraging.
What should be on the Golden Knights’ holiday wishlist?
A couple of depth pieces
Looking up and down the Vegas roster, it’s hard to find many holes. The goaltending is strong, the defense core is incredibly deep and contains players with offensive minds, defensive minds, and some who do both. Up front the team is deep as well and features a two-way star in Stone, a superstar scorer in Eichel, a few puck movers and snipers with names like Stephenson, Smith, and Marchessault, and a number of other secondary scoring options as well as a solid bottom-six.
Where Vegas is lacking in these groups, however, is depth beyond their main group. The team has dealt with injuries, discussed above, however the replacement players they’ve brought up, while talented in their own right, are not perhaps the most experienced and ready to join a group with eyes set on the Cup. Vegas doesn’t need depth as far as another third-line option goes, but instead an affordable player or two with semi-significant NHL experience to step in when players go down. This depth could be found on the trade market, and that may help with budgeting the new player in, but could also simply be a waiver-wire find.