Pavel Dorofeyev netted the Golden Knights’ first hat trick of the season last night in Nashville and became the second youngest Golden Knight to ever score three in a single game. Unfortunately, because it came in a loss, it probably won’t go down as one of the more memorable hat tricks in team history.
There have been 20 hat tricks since Vegas started playing games in 2017. Here are all of them, ranked from least memorable to the unlikely to ever be defeated most memorable one in June of 2023.
**NHL.com took down a lot of the highlights of the goals, so if you click the date, it’ll bring you to a YouTube video of that games goals.**
#20 – Jonathan Marchessault at New York Rangers
January 26th, 2024
It’s barely a year old and yet still it’s hard to really remember this game for some reason. Marchessault had three goals on three shots beating one of the best goalies in the world, Igor Shesterkin.
#19 – Jack Eichel vs Columbus
March 19th, 2022
This was one of the worst goaltended games ever played against the Golden Knights. Eichel’s first two goals were both horrendous errors by the goalie. His third one was nifty though.
#18 – Jonathan Marchessault vs Winnipeg
November 2nd, 2023
Get used to seeing Marchessault’s name on this list, he has 7 of the 20 hat tricks in team history. He has a way of terrorizing Connor Hellebuyck and that’s exactly what he did in this game.
#17 – Jonathan Marchessault vs. Pittsburgh
January 19th, 2019
There were 10 goals in this game and six of them were scored before Marchessault even began his quest for a hat trick. His first broke the 3-3 tie, then he extended the lead to 5-3, and eventually tapped in the empty netter with an assist from Marc-Andre Fleury.
#16 – Mark Stone vs Nashville
January 15th, 2024
Bonus points for this hat trick as one of the few that didn’t include an empty netter. VGK had been limping at the time with a 3-8-0 record but Stone’s heroics helped turn that around as this win helped spur a 7-1-1 run. It was Stone’s first (and only) career regular season hat trick.
#15 – Reilly Smith vs St. Louis
May 8th, 2021
Smith’s only hatty with the Golden Knights came in front of a limited crowd due to COVID. It was one of the only games in franchise history in which VGK scored a goal at even strength, on the power play, shorthanded, and into an empty net. Smith had all of them beside the shorty.
#14 – Jonathan Marchessault vs Detroit
March 9th, 2024
What was great about this hat trick was that it kind of gave the belief that Marchessault might be able to get to Karlsson’s 43 goal record last year. With the season winding down it didn’t seem like Marchessault was going to be able to do it, but goals 33, 34, and 35 all coming in the same game gave the chase hope.
#13 – Pavel Dorofeyev at Nashville
January 14th, 2025
Of course, recency bias plays a factor here but it was the first hat trick of this season and the first of Dorofeyev’s career. It wouldn’t surprise me if years from now his name is on the list many more times which could help make this one mean a bit more despite the loss.