Over the last two games, the Vegas Golden Knights have been without the trio of Chandler Stephenson, Nicolas Hague, and Nicolas Roy. Over that time, the league-leading Golden Knights have gone 1-1-0, losing to their division rival, Los Angeles Kings, last Wednesday.
In an update from practice today, Ben Gotz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that none of the trio are to be expected back in the team’s game against the Washington Capitals tomorrow night, but issued assurances they could be back by the weekend. Of the three, Roy has had the longest absence, after being put on the team’s injured reserve on October 24th.
Of the three, Stephenson is the most important to get back into the lineup, as he remains on one of the best-value contracts in the NHL. On the last season of a four-year, $11MM contract signed with Vegas back in 2020, Stephenson has scored 53 goals and 121 assists over 224 games as a Golden Knight.
Other notes:
- Some notable additions to the Seattle Kraken practice were Brandon Tanev and Jordan Eberle, who is now without a non-contact jersey, respectively (X Link). Eberle has gotten off to a relatively slow start with the Kraken this year, Eberle has scored four points in 13 games, coupled with a -8 rating already this season.
- According to the AHL transaction log, young NHL enforcer, Alex Laferriere is back on the roster with Los Angeles (X Link). Primarily playing in the team’s bottom six over the course of the young season, Laferriere has scored two goals and one assist through 14 games.
Alex “Enforcer” Laferriere, I see what you did there. lol
I wouldn’t call Laferriere an enforcer. In fact he’s not even close. He’s actually a really talented player who happens to engage in some rough stuff; maybe a grinder? but he’s got too much talent to be just a grinder. If you look at the PIMs throughout his minor league/collegiate career he really doesn’t have that many PIMs even more of a point producer. It appears he took a major for the kings this year but one fight does not an enforcer make.