Last season, no team was worse at shootout than the Vegas Golden Knights. VGK participated in nine shootouts in 2025-26 and won just one. Of the 11 teams that participated in at least nine, every other team won at least three, and 10 of the 11 won at least four.
Vegas shooters converted on just 16.1% of their attempts (5 for 31), the second-worst mark in the league, ahead of St. Louis, and the goalies stopped 59.3% (19 of 32), ranking 23rd out of 31 teams that participated in at least one.
Those shootout struggles left points on the table. Had things gone slightly differently down the stretch, they could have cost the Golden Knights a playoff berth, and ultimately the run that took them to their third Stanley Cup Final.
Enter: Ryan Craig.
In his first chance behind the bench in the shootout, Craig wasted no time in switching things up from last year. After electing to go first as the home team, Craig sent 23-year-old Braeden Bowman over the boards to take the first attempt.
There’s a lot of trust in all of our players and yet some guys get that opportunity. We saw Bowman do it in the preseason and Trevor as well. I’ve seen him do that at the American Hockey League level. And at that point, it’s a one-on-one with the goalie. I thought those guys did a real good job. -Ryan Craig
In the battle of the NHL’s two newest expansion franchises, the Golden Knights have gotten the better of the Kraken so far. VGK have a 13-3-3 record against Seattle and have never lost in regulation at tonight’s venue, Climate Pledge Arena.
Despite a 5-0-3 indoor record in Seattle (trying to forget the Winter Classic), the Kraken have been a tough nut to crack for the Golden Knights recently. VGK have lost three straight overtime contests at Climate Pledge and have failed to score more than three goals in four of the last five games against the Kraken.
Seattle enters this game with a sterling defensive start to the season. They’ve allowed just five goals in three games and have conceded just one in two of them. Of course, both of those games were against the lowly Calgary Flames, but projected starter Joey Daccord has been excellent to begin the year and even better in his career against Vegas.
Daccord owns a 5-2-0 record against the Golden Knights with a .929 save percentage and 2.10 goals against average. He shut them out in the unfortunately aforementioned Winter Classic, and has allowed four goals against VGK just once, a game at T-Mobile Arena right before Vegas went on the Cup run in 2023.
Seattle hasn’t had much success scoring on Vegas either, though. Four of the last five contests between these two teams have seen five total goals or fewer. The Kraken have scored three or fewer goals in each of the last six games against Vegas and have never scored more than four in 19 meetings.
Like Daccord, Carter Hart’s history against Seattle has been strong. In his lone start against the Kraken with Vegas, he stopped 22 of 23 to help VGK clinch the Pacific Division in the final game of last season. Overall, he’s posted a .916 save percentage and 2.25 goals against average in four starts vs. Seattle.
Both the Golden Knights and Kraken have begun this season looking to play a fairly simple, direct game. Expect plenty of skating tonight, but not much in the way of scoring chances.
Three games, 11 goals, ten different goal scorers.
The Golden Knights are getting contributions from all over the lineup early on, and it’s a big reason why they’ve been able to win a pair of games and nearly come back in the other.
That production has been fueled by a fairly balanced usage of the forward lines at even strength. Aside from the 3rd period of the Anaheim game, when Ryan Craig went down to using just three lines, he’s essentially rolled the four lines, and contributions have followed.
Five different players have an even-strength goal (Marner, Eichel, Connelly, Bowman, Gatcomb) and nine of the 12 have at least a point. The only guys without a point are Mark Stone, William Karlsson, and Tomas Hertl, all of whom have made big impacts on special teams.
I thought all four of our lines were good. I thought different lines had different spurts at at different times. We talked about trying to stack shifts together. -Craig
On Tuesday night, the Golden Knights recorded 37 shots on goal in their 5-2 opening night victory over the Chicago Blackhawks. It was the most SOG for Vegas in a season debut since 2022, and the 2nd most in an opener ever. Shockingly, Vegas landed 51 shots on opening night in the 2022-23 campaign. Mr. Jack “please shoot more” Eichel registered an astounding seven shots on goal that evening. This season, Eichel has started off with two shots and a 50% shooting percentage.
However, it wasn’t only Vegas’ forwards creating shooting chances on Tuesday night; VGK’s defensemen also got in on the action against the Blackhawks. The Golden Knights received 11 shots from the blueline, including five from Rasmus Andersson and Noah Hanifin. Only Trevor Connelly, Tomas Hertl and Mitch Marner exceeded 3 SOG in Game 1 of 84. Heck, even Jeremy Lauzon took three shots on Chicago’s net. If coach Ryan Craig drew up a game plan that called for more blueline shots, he got it from his group of six.
(Photo Credit: J. Tyge O’Donnell, LVSportsBiz.com)
A focal point for new head coach Ryan Craig this season was building a more balanced blue line, with Shea Theodore, Rasmus Andersson, and Noah Hanifin each anchoring a separate pairing. It came with a concern (which we wrote and talked about extensively) that it could lead to one of the big-name defensemen being underutilized.
On Opening Night, the Golden Knights stuck to that plan, distributing ice time extremely evenly across all three defensive pairings.
We’re aware of (trying to balance the minutes). We have three very good pairs in the sense that they can all defend. I think they all got used as the game went on, and we were fresh by the end. -Ryan Craig
A spread of four minutes between the ice time of the top defenseman and the bottom is impressively low. For comparison, Chicago’s spread between Bowen Byram and Ian Cole was more than 12 minutes. Only two of the other eight teams in action last night were under 10 minutes, and Florida clocked in at a whopping delta of 18 minutes.
Ryan Craig is rolling out a new look on the power play, and while it’s only one new player coming in, it’s going to give the unit a completely new vibe.
With Pavel Dorofeyev no longer in the picture, the like-for-like swap would have been to put Victor Olofsson in the shooter spot while keeping everything else the same. After all, the power play has been dynamite for the last two seasons, hitting at 26.2%, the second best rate in the NHL. And Olofsson was actually a part of it as Bruce Cassidy’s first choice to open the 24-25 season.
Instead, Craig is trying something different. Shea Theodore is replacing Dorofeyev on the top unit, but Mitch Marner will occupy Pavel’s spot in the circle opposite Jack Eichel. It seems like a small change, but it completely revamps the entire plan of attack for Vegas’ top power play unit.
VGK Top PP Unit Stone Eichel-Hertl-Marner Theodore
There is plenty to like about the adjustment. There is also plenty that could go wrong.
Marner’s creativity
One of the VGK power play’s biggest issues in recent seasons has been its tendency to stagnate when the puck reaches Eichel. It felt like the only way for the unit to create something dangerous was for Eichel to take the lead. With Marner now operating on the other side, that’s no longer the case. The puck can start on either side of the ice in the hands of one of the world’s most creative players. Eichel’s main options remain to Mark Stone or Tomas Hertl, but the risky option of sending the puck all the way across to Dorofeyev has been replaced with a simpler drop-off pass to Theodore in the high slot. On the other side, Marner can find Stone on the back door, Hertl in the bumper, or Eichel on the far side.
Interchange opportunities
When the unit consisted of five forwards, Marner was essentially stapled to the blue line. Because he’s by far the most reliable of the group to get back and kill a shorthanded opportunity, he didn’t really have the freedom to move around and create new looks either on or off of the puck. With Theodore in the mix, Marner will have more freedom to try and find soft spots in the opposing kill by shifting his positioning. And, because Theodore is a left-hand shot, if he and Marner end up swapping places, Eichel regains the option to zip the puck through the seam for a one-timer.
Stone becomes more of a goal threat
Mark Stone is somewhat of a wizard with the puck underneath the goal line on the power play. The number of times he found ways to beat defending sticks to get the puck to either Hertl or across to Dorofeyev is astounding. In the new setup, especially when the puck is on Marner’s stick, Stone is much more likely to operate above the goal line as a backboard either for a tip, pass, or shot pass. Before, Stone’s only real chance to score goals was on the classic jam play or collecting rebounds. Now, he’ll be able to use his incredible hands to finish off plays that are actually designed for him. He suddenly becomes the most dangerous option on the ice, which could open up a few more lanes to pass the puck to Hertl in the bumper.
These added layers should bring more versatility to a unit that occasionally went stale. However, they also take away some of the elements that made it one of the NHL’s best power-play units.
The Golden Knights enter Season 10 with a goalie situation familiar to how they’ve started each of the last four years. Carter Hart, after starting all 22 games in the playoffs, is the clear starter, while Adin Hill will serve as his backup. Last season, Hill was the starter with Schmid behind him; the year before it was Hill and Thompson; and the year VGK won the Cup started with Thompson starting over Hill.
Through it all, the man behind the decisions has not changed. Director of Goaltending Sean Burke took the job before the 2022-23 season and remains in that position for this season.
His history has clearly shown that he favors one goalie over another but uses both consistently, even when there are not back-to-back games on the schedule. Based on the previous four seasons, it seems like his preferred split is around 65% to the starter and 35% to the backup. He also swaps goalies every time there’s a back-to-back, even in the event of injury.
First 20 Games
2022-23 Starter: 13 Backup: 7 B2Bs: 1
2023-24 Starter: 12 Backup: 8 B2Bs: 3
2024-25 Starter: 13 Backup: 7 B2Bs: 2
2025-26 Starter: 13 Backup: 7 B2Bs: 3
Things got a little hairy last season when Adin Hill suffered an injury that forced him to miss a game, then returned, and was immediately forced back out for a few months. Through that, Burke (and Cassidy at the time) continued to rotate goalies, using Carl Lindbom eight times in a 17-game span before Carter Hart was eligible to play.
In VGK’s first 20 games this season, there are two back-to-backs, both with consecutive road games. Hill be likely in net for the second of those, on October 13th at Nashville and November 3rd at Pittsburgh. Hart certainly has the home opener and probably will be right back in there for the second game of the season three nights later against Anaheim. Then, there will likely be a rotation that should look something like this…
