Golden Knights Sit In NHL’s Basement For Scoring From Defensemen

In the 3rd period Saturday night, the Golden Knights applied wave after wave of pressure to the Anaheim Ducks as they chased the game-tying goal. Typically, that goal has come from Pavel Dorofeyev, Jack Eichel, Tomas Hertl, or Ivan Barbashev, the guys Vegas typically lean on to do the bulk of the scoring. But on Saturday, it was Kaedan Korczak who stepped up and buried a shot from the slot to even the score and ultimately help VGK earn a point in a game they entered the final period trailing by multiple goals.

Goals from unlikely places have been a rarity for the Golden Knights. Forwards Brandon Saad, Keegan Kolesar, Colton Sissons, and Alex Holtz are all still looking for their first goal of the season, while Cole Reinhardt and Reilly Smith have one goal apiece, and Smith’s came on an empty net in OT in San Jose.

Maybe the bigger issue, though, is from another group.

We would like more secondary scoring from our defense, and other people in our lineup. -Bruce Cassidy

This year, Golden Knights defensemen have scored two goals and 17 points in VGK’s 14 games. Only the Florida Panthers have received fewer goals, and no team has scored fewer points than the Golden Knights. To further illustrate Vegas’ lack of production from the back end, just 13.5% of the team’s points have come from defensemen; the next lowest team in the league is Detroit with 19.5%, and no other team is under 21%. The league-leading Capitals have received a whopping 31.6% of their team’s points from blue liners.

We’ve been kind of fighting to find some more open space and score some more goals, so there was an onus on that during practice. It seems like a lot of guys are stuck right now, myself included. So we just have to keep battling, and focus on the small details and build your game from there. -Theodore

Last year’s defense corps scored 35 goals (12.8% of the team’s goals) and 186 points (25.0% of the team’s points). The Cup-winning team’s numbers were similar in the regular season (36 goals, 13.5%, 173 points, 30.9%). These numbers are particularly odd because in last year’s postseason, VGK received 18% of goals and 32% of the team’s points from defensemen, both near the top of the league.

Why is that down? Execution of getting pucks to the net at times, I think that’s a little bit of the problem right now. The connection between the puck getting there and then the forwards being there and tippable pucks. I think we can do a much better job int hat area of the O-Zone. Shooting for offense as opposed to scoring. So we have to continue to sell that idea. -Cassidy

There’s no question, Noah Hanifin’s absence for 10 of the first 11 games of the season plays a huge part. He’s been active in the offense consistently in his three games since returning, and he’s tallied a point in each of the last two games.

The lack of scoring from the rest of the defensemen, though, is a huge reason why VGK scored 30 goals in the first seven games and have notched just 16 in the last seven.

There’s usually a few guys by now that would have a few plays to the net that resulted in goals and we’re definitely missing that. We’d like to build on it and yes we need to improve. -Cassidy

There’s no better time to turn that around than starting tonight against the Panthers. Missing two of their most important players, they’ve stumbled out of the gates to a 7-7-1 record. They’re currently three points out of a playoff spot, which can also be said of each of VGK’s next five opponents.

The Panthers, Islanders, Blues, Wild, and Rangers all sit below the cut line, and none of these teams have won more than seven games this season. Two points from defensemen were a start against Anaheim. It would be nice to see 10 or so in the next five games coming up.