Recap: The Golden Knights welcomed in the NHL’s last remaining undefeated team, the Carolina Hurricanes. Vegas took the first lead of the game 8:42 into the game after a loose puck slipped by the Hurricanes’ goaltender. Jack Eichel was credited with his sixth goal of 2025-26. A couple of shifts later, Pavel Dorofeyev doubled VGK’s advantage with a nifty Peter Forsberg-inspired goal.
Carolina cut Vegas’ lead in half early on in the second period. The Golden Knights held on their tight lead and took a 2-1 advantage into the second intermission.
The Hurricanes had plenty of chances to even the score but couldn’t get one past Vegas goalie Akira Schmid. Ivan Barbashev regained the Golden Knights two goal advantage midway through the final frame. William Karlsson added the empty netter to seal the deal.
The Golden Knights’ record improves to 5-0-2 defeating to formerly undefeated Hurricanes 4-1 at T-Mobile Arena. Next up, Vegas will travel east for a challenging three-game road trip beginning in Sunrise, Florida. Puck drop against the Panthers is scheduled for Saturday at 3 PM. (Recap by Jason)
Analysis: This was the first true test of the season with an undefeated team in the house. Carolina has been rolling teams with their pressure and speed. VGK took a few shifts to get up to speed but once they did they started finding open ice and creating great chances. The game stayed close because Frederik Andersen in the Canes net was fantastic robbing multiple Grade A+ chances. Overall though, an excellent game in all three zones from VGK. Of course, concern remains for the injury to Adin Hill after he was essentially carried down the tunnel after leaving the game. (Analysis by Ken)
Upcoming stories from the Vegas Golden Knights vs. Carolina Hurricanes at T-Mobile Arena.
- SinBin.vegas Podcast (recording on Tuesday)
Ken’s Three VGK Stars
*** Brandon Saad
** Jack Eichel
* Ivan Barbashev
Pistol Pete
Attention Saad naysayers per Ken and I agree and looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of him on the Eichel line unless Cassidy puts Marner up there and goes back to Saad-Hertl-Pav sort of doubt that short term because the Hertl scores every game with Marner on it.
“Brandon Saad has had a slow start to the season. He’s been terrific in this game though.”
Looks like it will be Schmid/Lindbom
I was among the faithful who thought this team could beat the Canes and better yet I was there!
Pistol Pete
Hertl line
Larry
As I said in an earlier post, halt the naysaying aspect, we all want what’s best for VGK. Thank you.
Pistol Pete
Please understand buddy it was my intent to use the term naysayer in friendly jest!
Turns out it was good for me to stay positive on the guy moreover it looks now like it could be an accurate read on my part. I have been saying he’s heavy and fast and his goals per 82 games is 23 compared to Karlsson’s and Smith’s. Saad has always been known as an above average finisher. Now we’ll see if he can be a good playmaker every game on that line we need it with Stone out. For me I like staying positive even when things look a little shaky. Each to their own!
Pistol Pete
Karlsson’s and Smith’s 20 I meant to say.
Pistol Pete
Kraken lose in reg to Flyers.
Richie-Rich
Game 7 Summary VGK 4 CAR 1 12pts
1st Pacific, Western Conference and League leading Colorado by 1pt.
This game lived up to the hype. Carolina is a talented team and both teams battled hard throughout the entire contest. At the end the VGK had the better sticks and won the battles along the boards.
K’Andre Miller went down after an apparent slash by Barbashev who went on to score an insurance goal late in the contest. It wasn’t a hard slash, more of a tap and from the refs perspective it may have looked like he lost an edge. A very lucky no call for the home team.
Dorofeyev and Saad played great.
The Hill injury looked to me like a left knee problem as he slammed down pretty hard and awkwardly. I am willing to bet he’s going to be another player on the week-to-week binnacle list along with Mark Stone.
I’ve been impressed with Schmid’s play. He looks very confident and calm in there. This road trip could be a golden opportunity for him to prove himself.
Pistol Pete
I looked into it and breakaways and shootouts is an area where Eichel can improve his results and become more elite at it. He’s become elite at pretty much everything else. Good point R-R and Larry below.
Larry
I may be in the minority, but I felt Carolina was actually the better overall team tonight, VGK had easily the most Grade A chances which were snuffed out by the goalie, and some opportunities just sailing wide of the net.
Captain Mark Stone was clearly missed on the Power Play tonight as it was kind of a hot mess without him, of course the canes penalty kill was excellent as well as dangerous short handed.
Speaking of short-handed and breakaways, if there’s one element of Eichels game that needs to be worked and improved upon would be his effectiveness on breakaways and of course shootouts.
Overall excellent defensive effort by the Golden Knights tonight keeping the middle clear and keeping most opportunities to the outside.
Pistol Pete
You are definitely in the minority at least as I see it!
Emmanuel
Carolina were neck to neck with VGK for about 45 minutes, they were stonewalled by Akira, also the first VGK goal was a little fluky, but that counts too…
NAM
You remove the score and it was a close game and CAR even had some moments of dominance. A lot of time in the Vegas zone in 3rd period. That is a good team and tonight they couldn’t get pucks in and Vegas could. It was a good game and of course the right team won for 4 in a row!
Larry
I’m glad others could see what I saw, it does not make us any less of a fan to be objective to what we see take place through our eyes.
Scott
VGK were by far the better team in periods 1 and 3. Canes made a game of it in period 2 but could not sustain it. Great game by the VGK and the defense was very solid throughout.
Vic
Wonderful playoff type game in October. All the guys played hard and fast and the team looked faster than in any other game so far. To not give Schmid a star is a worse call than the ref made missing Barbashev’s non penalty. Saad from line four to line one and thankfully a nice game. There are no naysayers…only people pointing out that Saad was invisible until tonight and demoted to line four. We were hoping he would awaken and are happy. Injuries piling up, but guys stepping up. Rest up until Saturday for the east coast swing.
Pistol Pete
The criticism of Saad seemed to me to the point where he was no longer good enough to be on the team. That is fine everybody is entitled to their own slant. Me I like to be positive like the coach and try to see where every player can play up to their potential regardless of age. If one common thread runs through my history on this board it is that I react to negativity because I prefer to err on the side of being postive.
Vic
I think you take comments too seriously and try to respond to every point anyone makes. Many of us have been playing or involved with hockey for more years we would like to admit. Of course we realize Saad is NHL caliber, but until last night he looked like me out there, and you wouldn’t want to see that. Obviously coach saw the same thing and dropped him to line 4. Now we get to see him on line 1 perhaps until others return. Wishing him success.
Pistol Pete
No, he dropped him down to line four because Stone was still in. With Howden out Cassidy chose to put Saad on the Sissons line rather than Holtz because he’s bigger and more experienced and would be better than Reinhardt (obviously). It made sense. Put Holtz on the Karlsson line. Stone is out and Cassidy does the smart thing putting Saad in his place and leave Marner on the Hertl line because that has been working. He was not demoted to the fourth line per se it was just the combo that made the most sense just like he was not “demoted” to the Karlsson line when Marner went on the Hertl line.
I know you guys who were discouraged by Saad’s slow start are rooting along with rest of us fir him to excel with Eichel and Barbashev and he might just!
Hdbiker7851
Probably to a fault more often than not. Your posts come off as a know it all and we all know that is not the case. Just an observation from one who is often accused of being negative, miserable etc. but a realist which is often taken the wrong way. Guess we all have faults
Pistol Pete
I am all for having a debate on any of my points. I am positive like the coach and GM they know more than me and they make the team successful so why not go with them and learn? At least some of the negativity I see here seems more fan emotions-based than anything else and as such does not advance my own knowledge of the situation. It does us no good to complain about Saad and Hill when we are locked in to these guys because of the cap. We can only hope for the best and hang with the coach who happens to be about the best in the league.
The team will inevitably have a losing streak and the negativity will hit us in full force it always does lol.
Emmanuel
You are WAY overating Saad, he was waived by the Blues when they were fighting for a playoff spot. He tops off now as a 15-20G 15-20A F. Thats the best case scenario. The big issue with Saad is hes lost scoring touch down low.
NAM
OMG not a $2million dollar 15-20G 15-20A player that is a 200ft player that can play up and down the lineup. How disgusting, oh the humanity.
Emmanuel
NAM
1. I said that was his TOP end. More likely hes a 8G/12A bottom sixer.
2. Who said h’es a “200 ft player”? You guys turn every complimentary player into the 2nd coming of Cam Neely!
Pistol Pete
So overall I thought we were really good tonight. Good point Vic playoff game in October. Cassidy is trying to get this team to play like the playoffs all season long but doing it no more injury prone than normal could be a concern.
Pistol Pete
Through seven games Marner has six hits to Eichel’s four.
Pistol Pete
Marner needs more reps playing Stone’s position on the PP. I’ll be positive as usual and say he’ll get there.
DeezNutz
TORONTO BLUE JAYS ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH TIM FOR BIEBER. Sorry I can only pay half the attention to my Knights in this time of baseball playoff excellence but team is looking good so far hopefully nobody gets injured until guys can start getting healthy this VGK team is a M.A.S.H. UNIT walking bandaid once again.
Pistol Pete
VGK and COL only teams yet to lose in reg!
Here is what Cassidy had to say about Pav:
“He’s harder to get [the puck] from, that’s one of the reasons he is scoring,” Cassidy said. “He’s able to hang on to some pucks. Tonight was more of it. I’ll say his pace. I’ll use that goal. He separates, and he’s been doing a good job. He’s a little bit quicker this year, probably something to do with strength.”
JB
Hill down again. Schmid just seems so calm in net. I like him. Oh, my fries who also lives in summerlin, says he saw Stone riding in a car and saw a cast on his left wrist/arm? So I would say it is broken/fractured. That would be 4 to six weeks I would think!
A Fan
If you watch the replay a few times of when Hill went down and him holding his left wrist leaving the ice and on the bench, I would agree it’s probably a wrist injury.
NAM
It’s hard not to like Schmid to be honest. I don’t have his stats in front of me, but last night was the first goal he let in in a game that he didn’t start for VGK. I think this was the 4 or 5th relief going back to last year. He was 1.00 save percentage on those reliefs and finally let in 1 last night. That in itself was pretty impressive. He is a brick wall coming off the bench cold.
JB
Friend not fries! :)
TS
Hey, jb, fries ARE our friends!! Haha!
Pistol Pete
Matthews and McDavid are both signed through 2027-28. It ‘s a no-brainer if Toronto continues to flounder Mathews will walk over here free for the VGK he even grew up in the desert. In speaking with a fellow fan he felt Mathews would be a way better fit in this locker room than McDavid I agree besides he’s more of a pure goal scorer and more than likely would be back with Marner.
Like with Saad lots of Hill negativity on SinBin but not from yours truly. Now that he’s out it will be interesting to see what happens. If it’s longer term we could get a look at Hart before he’s back. We sure need Schmid to shine. Lindbom has been just excellent in Henderson and the AHL is a hard league to tend goal in.
Pistol Pete
Hill was 2.47/.905 last year, I ask you is that bad? The critics will say he sucked in the playoffs never mind he was 1.70/.931 the year before in the DAL series (LT was 2.35/.921). It’s all about having reasonable expectations. Last year we could not score against EDM and had puck management issues against both teams that is what did Hill in more than his goaltending.
knights fan in minny
Good team win a good fast paced game Saad Did a nice job on the first line I thought holtyz Had a pretty decent game Schmid Came in cold and stood tall It’s his net now time to be The man hopefully we get howdy back before the weekend Swing To the Sunshine State
Pistol Pete
Howden practiced Monday not in a no-contact jersey so looks like he plays Saturday. Hanifin is said to be traveling to Florida so he must be getting close.
ID10T w/ a Ba1100n
I see you are maintaining your >55% posting! Seriously PP, you don’t have to reply to everything, including your own comments.
It was a good game, exciting, the VGK D was good at limiting the danger. I will say that Wild Bill’s line screwed the pooch on that line change, and there were a couple bad changes in the 2nd. We can’t complain too much, so far the VGK had taken down lesser teams, but last night, they got a big W against a top team.
Is it my imagination, or to the officials seem to be calling Vegas for stupid crap? It feels like they are over compensating for Vegas having the least penalties last year. I was truly surprised Barbashev didn’t get called for tapping Miller.
Larry
I was not ‘truly surprised’ Barbashev did not get a penalty, I was SHOCKED as the refs were calling ticky-tack ‘slashing’ penalties earlier and this was one taking place with almost no way of not seeing and calling that, thankfully they didn’t, and though the cameras didn’t show it I’m sure Brindamoure was blowing a gasket on the bench.
Pistol Pete
I am always coming up with additional thoughts to add. Those who enjoy reading me for the occasional insights I provide, I doubt they mind. Am I not the first to suggest Matthews? That is three years downstream but try and tell me any VGK fan does not want that prediction to be prescient?!!!
Pistol Pete
Another thought on Matthews: Marner will more than likely stay in close contact with him over the next three seasons. If Mitch does well here it’s easy to see the synergy!
Harley hdbiker7851
PP – predictions are like Swiss cheese – full of holes. Three years is a lifetime and at this point why bother. I am surprised you haven’t indicated you had some inside contact with the FO and they are all in. Let’s deal with what we have, how they can improve, give credit where credit is due and realistic criticism when appropriate.
TS
Kfim, i just hv to say that your Hockey comments are so much more interesting and informed than the ” off- topic” posts.You have Hockey knowledge i have always appreciated, and I’m glad to see it! Yes, we CAN get along, as hockey fans!
Carry on!!
trade
Saad definitely got the memo. either pick up the intensity or go bye bye. He showed that he still has something left in the tank, but it is like pulling teeth to bring it out of him. He is a very introverted, quiet type, and the question will be can he sustain it?
It showed that playing with the best current player in hockey can bring out the best in guys like Barby and Saad, but they have to generate their own intensity, or else no one can help.
Schmid continues to impress with his incredible relief record. He is playing with such a calm demeanor that he makes it look easy. Minimal lunging, or flailing, or diving, or acrobatics…just stopping the puck with technique and angles, and rebound control.
I would love to see Schmid and Lindbom carry the load for a good long stretch.
and one thing I noticed about the d corps…. they are boxing out a lot more aggressively this season. That is a major improvement on the backend.
Larry
In response to your keen eye as to the boxing out, and without lighting another fuse as to my stated feeling on the former #7 of the last 2 years, having Hutton in the lineup improves that aspect as he is a throwback to past generations of protecting your goaltender, and along with Whitecloud it is noticeable.
trade
I like Hutton. He is Mr Dependable. He stepped in bigtime in game 5 vs Edm in the ’23 series that led to the cup when Petro was suspended one game.
Emily51
Holy mackeral! Lots of comments, but all were about hockey!!! I’m late to the party because of football season, but I am so impressed by your moderating, Ken! It looks like a lot of people want to talk hockey and can leave the vulgarity and stupid politics behind. Yay!
TS
Emily, isn’t it awesome?? Ken must be kicking himsrlf that he took so long to moderate! Btw, “Holy Mackeral” is a HOOT! Haven’t heard it in years!