Golden Knights' depth passes stress test

LAS VEGAS — Everything has fallen into place.

The Vegas Golden Knights head to the Stanley Cup Playoffs as Pacific Division champions. The Knights, who garnered 50 wins and 110 points, will face Minnesota, a team they defeated in all three meetings this season. They have their full roster available for the Wild, beginning with Game 1 Sunday at T-Mobile Arena.

And yes, it will be one last chance to see Marc-Andre Fleury, perhaps the most beloved player among VGK fans in the eight-year history of the franchise.

This is the 40-year-old goaltender and future Hall-of-Famer’s final NHL season and while I’m sure he’s excited about being in the postseason for the 18th time, he likely will be watching from the Minnesota bench wearing a baseball cap as Filip Gustavsson will be John Hynes’ choice to be in goal.

The Knights will get to shake hands with their former teammate at the end of the series, win or lose. But prior to that, the 2023 Stanley Cup champions have some business to take care of in their quest to play for the Cup once again.

Coach Bruce Cassidy has to restructure his lines and his defense pairs. He had been without leading scorer Jack Eichel for a couple of weeks as Eichel dealt with an upper body injury. Eichel did return for the season finale in Vancouver Wednesday and he appears fine.

Victor Olofsson has gotten over the illness that kept him out of the lineup for four games. Ditto for defensemen Alex Pietrangelo and Nicolas Hague.

Cassidy got some strong play from Nic Roy and Brett Howden while Eichel sat out. Kaedan Korczak and Ben Hutton performed well filling in for Pietrangelo and Hague. Reilly Smith, Tanner Pearson and Brandon Saad, a trio of reliable veterans, gave Cassidy some much needed versatility and dependability while Olofsson convalesced.

So it’s a nice problem for the coach to have, isn’t it?

“We’re healthy,” Cassidy said. “Everyone is ready to go.
We tried to manage our roster all week, give some people some time off.”  

That included giving goaltender Adin Hill a week off after he played a career-high 50 games this season.

“It was a goal of mine so it’s nice to get over the hump,” Hill said of starting 50 times in a season. “I did a couple of things different to prepare but didn’t change. There wasn’t anything I didn’t stop doing.”

As for constructing his lines and D-pairings, Cassidy shouldn’t have too many problems. Eichel is easy. You put him back between Mark Stone and Ivan Barbashev and off they go as your top line. Olofsson seems to fit well with William Karlsson and Smith, so that trio likely gets reunited. Tomas Hertl has been back on the ice for over a week and having Pavel Dorofeyev and Saad on his flanks is a likely line.

Where it gets tricky is what to do with Roy and Howden. Do you play them together using Roy at center and Howden on left wing? And who plays on the right side? Is it Pearson, the veteran who has a couple of Stanley Cup rings and has delivered in a big way after making the team off a PTO out of training camp? Or does Keegan Kolesar, who is having his best season as a pro and who gives you toughness, stay in the lineup?

Defensively, Zach Whitecloud and Noah Hanifin have played well together while Shea Theodore and Brayden McNabb, longtime partners on the blue line, are likely to remain together. So that probably means Pietrangelo and Hague will pair up, leaving Korczak and Hutton to skate with the team’s “Black Aces” and stay ready in case someone gets hurt.

Alexander Holtz, Jonas Rondbjerg, Cole Schwindt and Akira Schmid will likely join that group. The return of Ilya Samsonov to back up Hill allows Schmid, who played well filling in as the backup netminder, to be the third wheel in goal.

The team’s depth was tested throughout the year and it proved to be able to handle the stress test. There’s no LTIR issues for opposing fans to scream about and there aren’t any distractions that can seep in.

General manager Kelly McCrimmon said the team had 210 man-lost games this season, which is down from the 318 it had the year it won the Cup.

“We had our share of injuries but I’m encouraged by our health,” he said Saturday.

Cassidy got to learn about his roster over the course of the season, how to use players in different spots and how they handled different roles.

“I learned we still like to win,” Cassidy said what he learned about his team in the last week or so while being forced to change his lineup constantly as various people sat out in preparation for the playoffs. “We played different people in different places. We used Howden with Jack. A couple of other changes.

“We have lots of trust in our guys. We’re fortunate to have good depth. Guys know they have to stay ready.”

Howden was one of those players who Cassidy knew he could trust. He played up and down the lineup, was going between center and left wing yet he produced his most productive season in seven years as an NHLer with 23 goals and 40 points.

“I think it was part confidence and part maturity,” Howden said of the contributions he was able to make. “I tried not to put pressure on myself. I just tried to go out there and play. I felt confident playing in different situations.

“I think I also had some early puck luck gave me some confidence. Wherever they ask me to play and be ready to go and do the best I can.”

And while the Knights can field the roster they expected to before the season, the Wild is finally healthy itself. Having Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek back in the lineup gives Minnesota’s offense a boost. Eriksson Ek scored four goals in his return to the lineup last week and he always is a handful for Vegas to deal with.

Still, with home ice advantage, where they went 29-9-3 this year, gives the Knights a potential leg up. However, Minnesota was better away from the Xcel Energy Center, going 23-13-5. The Wild won’t be all that uncomfortable being away from St. Paul.

Cassidy said the focus is on his team as the playoffs begin.

“We have to reclaim that feeling from two years ago of guys who were close but hadn’t gotten there,” he said. “From the Misfits from 2018, to guys from other organizations, like myself. How hungry are you? How much do you want it?

“That’s what we have to reclaim. We want to be true to ourselves and play our game. We want to play Vegas Golden Knights hockey.”