Scoring Goals In VGK Debut A Bit Of A New Phenomenon In 2019-20

(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)

Well, it happened again. In his first game with the Golden Knights, Nick Cousins found the back of the net helping his new team take home the win. He became the 6th Golden Knights to score in his debut this season and the 3rd to do it in the last four games.

Yeah, that was fun. It’s been a crazy couple of days here with all the travel but there’s no better way to be thrown in the fire than to play a game at home and obviously it was great to contribute. -Cousins

In the Golden Knights history, 10 players scored in their debut.  The first to do it was James Neal, in the Golden Knights first-ever game. Then, both Alex Tuch and Vadim Shipachyov tallied in the same game against Boston a few weeks later. Then, it went dry for quite a while and the entirety of last season.

10/6/17 – James Neal (2)
10/15/17 – Vadim Shipachyov*
10/15/17 – Alex Tuch*
4/3/18 – Brandon Pirri
10/2/19 – Cody Glass*
10/27/19 – Nic Roy
12/3/19 – Chandler Stephenson
2/20/20 – Alec Martinez
2/23/20 – Patrick Brown
2/26/20 – Nick Cousins
*NHL debut

In total, the Golden Knights have gotten a goal from 10 of the 47 skaters to make their debut and it’s happened in 10 of the 25 games (a lot of guys debuted on 10/6/17 and 10/15/17).

The Golden Knights have had team success along with the goal scorers this year, another new phenomenon for 2019-20. In games with skaters making their debuts, Vegas was 5-4-1 in 2017-18 and 2-3-0 in 2018-19. This year, they are 9-1-0 with the only loss coming in Keegan Kolesar’s debut against Columbus.

Oddly enough, goals are far more common than assists. 10 players have scored a total of 11 goals, but in the 25 games in which Golden Knights have debuted, there have only been seven assists. Four of the seven came in the Golden Knights inaugural game in Dallas on October 6th, 2017.

10/6/17 – Cody Eakin
10/6/17 – Jason Garrison
10/6/17 – Nate Schmidt
10/6/17 – Luca Sbisa
10/15/17 – Alex Tuch*
4/6/19 – Jimmy Schuldt*
2/20/20 – Alec Martinez
*NHL debut

The Golden Knights are a perfect 4-0-0 when they receive an assist from a debutant.

I don’t have the answer for (why guys score in their first game), but I do know the trade deadline is over and we don’t have many more new guys coming in. -Pete DeBoer (with a chuckle)

The Golden Knights have had 11 skaters make their NHL debuts with the Golden Knights. They’ve racked up a total of three goals and two assists with the most recent goal coming from Cody Glass.

Finally, there are two other debuts that can’t go without mentioning. First, Nic Hague is the only player to ever receive a misconduct in his debut, getting thrown out of the game late in San Jose on October 4th, 2019. And Jon Merrill’s debut as a forward earlier this season, he scored in the 1st period against the Philadelphia Flyers on January 2nd, 2020.

As for goalies, Marc-Andre Fleury’s opening night performance in 2017 will likely never be topped. He stopped 45 of 46 shots in route to a 2-1 victory over the Stars. Malcolm Subban is the only other Golden Knights goalie to make a start in his debut, he was 30 seconds from a shutout when Brad Marchand scored. Subban saved an impressive 21 of 22 in his VGK debut.

10/6/17 – Marc-Andre Fleury – 45 of 46
10/15/17 – Malcolm Subban – 21 of 22
10/21/17 – Oscar Dansk* – 10 of 11
10/30/17 – Maxime Lagace* – 7 of 11
11/14/17 – Dylan Ferguson* – 1 of 2
10/25/19 – Garret Sparks – 12 of 14
*NHL debut

It could be a while until we see another skater, but Robin Lehner’s debut should be right around the corner. No matter how you slice it, he’s got some big skates to fill. Lucky for him, he’s got gigantic feet.