The Vegas Golden Knights will have a major hole to fill in the short-term. Top winger Mark Stone is out day-to-day with an upper-body injury sustained in Vegas’ Sunday loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, head coach Bruce Cassidy told reporters including Mike Harrington of Buffalo News. Stone’s injury came late in the first period, after a nudge from Penguins defenseman Kris Letang. He will be questionable for Vegas’ road game versus the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday.
Stone reached the end of the 2024-25 season in good health, dsepite mid-season injuries, but has otherwise built a tendency for missing games in the second-half of the season. Sunday’s game against Pittsburgh marked just the second time in the last four seasons that Stone has played a game in March. Routine injuries have held him out of 144 games between the start of the 2019-20 season and the end of 2024-25. He has missed an additional 17 games already this season.
The routine absences are routinely a major blow to the Vegas offense. Stone is a pillar of the lineup when healthy. He ranks second on the Golden Knights in scoring this season, with 21 goals and 60 points in only 43 games. That is a 114-point scoring pace over a full 82-game season, by far the highest on the Golden Knights. Stone has averaged 52 games, and 53 points, per season dating back to his first full season with the Golden Knights.
Vegas will face a tough test in finding who should replace Stone in the lineup. The Golden Knights are also facing injuries to forwards Jonas Rondbjerg, William Karlsson, and Brett Howden – straining the team’s offensive depth. Right-winger Alexander Holtz is currently Vegas’ only extra forward and could be in line for a return to the lineup as a result. Holtz appeared in five games in February, recording three points and eight shots on net. He has racked up nine points and a minus-one in 28 games this season, often from a fourth-line role in Vegas’ lineup.
Stone’s hole in the top-six will put more pressure on Pavel Dorofeyev, Ivan Barbashev, and Braeden Bowman to step into bigger, scoring roles. The trio rank fifth, sixth, and seventh on the Vegas offense in scoring – with 47, 42, and 23 points respectively. They will fill major roles as Vegas looks towards tough matchups against the Sabres, Detroit Red Wings, and Minnesota Wild over their next three games.