For the first time in the short history of the Vegas Golden Knights, they find themselves at the bottom of the Pacific Division.
Hard to believe a team with as much star power as the VGK are in this situation, but that is how things are right now. But how did they get to this point?
To start off, the biggest thing that is not an issue for the VGK right now is goaltending. While the statistics do not entirely reflect it, Robin Lehner has been great for the Golden Knights in net. He has made big saves at key moments in games that have kept the Golden Knights competitive in all but one of their games. There have been a few head scratchers that he has let in, but they pail in comparison to the ones he has had no chance on.
“The Walking Wounded”
The biggest issue with the Golden Knights right now is health. Before the season began, Alex Tuch had shoulder surgery that will keep him sidelined until at least mid-January.
In the second game of the season, the VGK lost their top two offensive producers in Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty. Pacioretty is out at least six weeks with a fractured foot. Stone has been labeled “somewhere between day-to-day and week-to-week” by head coach Pete DeBoer.
The injury bug did not stop there. Alec Martinez suffered a lower body injury in the third game of the season, and both Zach Whitecloud and Nolan Patrick suffered upper body injuries in the fourth game.
Altogether, that equates to about $27 million worth of players sitting on Injured reserve for a significant amount of time. This is causing the Golden Knights to play more rookies or American Hockey League level players than they ideally would want to.
This is the one issue the Golden Knights cannot fix. Injuries happen all the time, but the number of key players the Golden Knights have lost would hamper every team to some degree. The problem, however, is that this issue is compounded with the rest of the issues the team is having right now.
No Depth Scoring
With Stone and Pacioretty out, the offense will have to come from somewhere else. The thinking was that the “Misfit line” of Jonathan Marchessault, Reilly Smith, and William Karlsson would shoulder most of that load. The rest of the goals would come from the depth pieces acquired in the off season and the defense core.
The problem is that none of those things have come to fruition. Nolan Patrick and Evgenii Dadanov have, at best, been “just guys” when in the lineup. Brett Howden is not, nor will he be anytime soon, an elite goal scorer. The defense core has only contributed two goals five games of the season as well. Shea Theodore in particular has not looked anything like his former self since coming back from his preseason injury.
The Misfit line (save the game against Edmonton) has been good for the Golden Knights in the early part of the season, but it has not been enough. Not only have they driven a majority of the offense, but they have also realistically been the only drivers of offense. When they are not on the ice, the team just does not seem to be able to generate any sustained pressure. With teams keying in on them more and more, it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to score.
The Golden Knights have not had issues generating shots on net. In their last three losses, the team has had a combined 124 shots on net. The problem, however, is where these shots came from. An overwhelming majority have come from the outside or from the point. The Golden Knights are not the best in general at cleaning up rebounds in front of the net, but teams are not letting them do it at all.
So, what can be done to fix this? The obvious answer is for the rest of the team to step up and contribute, but that is easier said than done. In the short term, the best option is to split the Misfit line up to balance the offense down the lineup. There is no guarantee this will work, but the Golden Knights are running out of options.
Power play woes
It seems this topic is becoming like a broken record. The Golden Knights are 0 for 11 on the power play. They have not scored a power play goal since game six of the second round of the playoffs against Colorado (0 for 28 since that game).
While injuries play a factor in this, the players who are out have played on the power play before in this system. They still were not good even with those players in the lineup.
The baffling part of all of this is that the front office and coaching staff knew of this issue. It cost them a series against Montreal in the playoffs and was an issue the entire previous season. Their solution, instead of a complete overhaul of the system, was to add Evgenii Dadanov. Dadanov is not a bad player by any means but expecting one player to come in and change something that has been an issue for the Golden Knights for their entire existence is an unrealistic ask.
The problem is not players, the problem is the scheme. The Golden Knight’s entire plan on the man advantage is for one player to carry the puck in, get the puck deep, get it back out to the point, let either Pietrangelo or Theodore try to find a shooting lane, and hope it either goes in or gets deflected. In other words, the power play is way too predictable. They do the same thing, again and again, and the results have not been there.
Defensive Lapses
The blueprint is out on how to beat the Golden Knights. Montreal did it last season in the playoffs and Dallas did it the season prior. All teams have to do is keep Vegas out of the middle of the ice, make them shoot from the point or the sides, and wait until they make mistakes.
This leads to perhaps the most puzzling (and the most concerning) – turnovers. Last year, the Golden Knights were one of the best overall defensive teams. They were sound on the puck and were good exiting the zone.
This year, an overwhelming majority of the goals they have allowed have come off bad turnovers that have led to odd man rushes or clean breakaways. The game winning goals by both Edmonton and St. Louis are prime examples of this. Simple giveaways led to clean breaks for both teams that made the Golden Knights play.
The biggest concern with this problem is the players returning from injury may not be enough to get rid of this. In the short time the team was close to full strength, these turnovers were still happening. Pete DeBoer said before the season they were trying a new defensive system out to try to create more turnovers in the offensive zone. This basically requires the defensemen to break the puck out on their own.
So far, the new system has had the opposite effect. The team is committing way too many turnovers that are leading to goals. Lehner has saved some of them, but he has not been able to stop all of them. Frankly, it is unrealistic to expect him to make those saves night in and night out.
Looking Ahead
The only silver lining in all of this for the Golden Knights is that the injuries to their key players are not season ending. Fortunately, these injuries have happened within the first five games of the season. At some point, they will be back to full strength. When healthy, this team is still by far the most complete and strongest team in the Pacific Division. The question is whether or not they will be able to weather the storm until more help arrives.
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