Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Take Five: Observations from Golden Knights’ first week of training camp

Alex Tuch, Robin Lehner are among practice standouts

VGK Practice

Wade Vandervort

Vegas Golden Knight Alex Tuch (89) skates on the ice during practice at City National Arena, Monday, July 13, 2020.

The Vegas Golden Knights head off to the NHL’s western conference postseason bubble in Edmonton in six days and play their lone exhibition game in 10 days.

That means they’re about halfway done with the formal training camp that began a week ago at City National Arena, so let’s take stock of what's happened so far.

Here are five observations from at the midway point of training camp.

The lines are set

Or at least they appear to be. The Golden Knights have used the same line combinations all week for players expected to see action in the playoffs. Here’s how it would appear the Golden Knights plan to line up:

Max Pacioretty — William Karlsson — Mark Stone

Jonathan Marchessault — Paul Stastny — Reilly Smith

Chandler Stephenson — Nicolas Roy — Alex Tuch

William Carrier — Nick Cousins — Ryan Reaves

Brayden McNabb — Nate Schmidt

Alex Martinez — Shea Theodore

Nick Holden — Zach Whitecloud

Marc-Andre Fleury, Robin Lehner

Two weeks remain until games begin, so there’s plenty of time for change. Jon Merrill and Deryk Engelland have been skating as a pair. And whole he’s outside the top 12 forwards, Tomas Nosek will likely be used in some capacity.

The only real uncertainty sits with the goalies.

Healthy Alex Tuch

If Tuch is back healthy and poised to get back to his 2018-2019 form, watch out.

The talented winger was terrific for the Golden Knights two seasons ago, standing out as the best player on the ice for a weeks at a time after returning from an early-season injury. He had 20 goals, 52 points and made his long-term deal look like a steal for the Golden Knights.

But he took a step back this year with only 17 points in 42 games. Injuries have haunted Tuch, but the bumps and bruises might be healed after four months off.

It sure looks like it. Tuch has been zipping around the ice at camp and scored the first goal in Saturday’s scrimmage.

He’s also still 24-years-old and signed for six more years after this one. One upcoming postseason isn’t going to define him, but if he catches fire the way the Golden Knights hope he can, he could make for a scary matchup for opponents’ down-lineup defensemen.

Top prospect impressing

Coach Peter DeBoer said it on his first day: Peyton Krebs has not looked out of place in his first NHL training camp. While it remains unlikely Krebs appears in the playoffs, he could push for playing time next season.

He’s still junior-eligible, so sending him to Winnipeg in the Wester Hockey League for another year of development is the standard route. But because of the NHL-CHL agreement, he must either play with the Golden Knights or be sent back to juniors — he can’t be sent to the American Hockey League.

He could appear in up to nine games with Vegas without using a year of his entry-level contract. If the Golden Knights decide he needs more seasoning after nine games, they could still return him to Winnipeg.

This is unprecedented territory for the Golden Knights. They’ve never used such a maneuver, but they’ve also never had a cap crunch quite like the one next year and had such a high-ceiling player waiting in the wings.

Special teams will be an emphasis

The Golden Knights were 27th in the league this season in the penalty kill with a 76.6 percent success rate. In 22 games under DeBoer, it went down to 70.7 percent.

They want to change that. Every goal is magnified in the postseason, so special teams are a chance to turn a game, or even a series, on its head, as Reilly Smith said this week. DeBoer even tried out Shea Theodore on the penalty kill Saturday, a player who has a total of 11:31 short-handed ice time this season.

The power play was better, with a 20.8 percent success rate to sit 10th in the league since the DeBoer arrived.

Most of the special teams work so far has been done away from the view of media, but it seems to have been a focal point.

Goalies soaring

In perhaps the least surprising development of training camp, one of the best goaltending duos in the league has lived up to their billing.

Robin Lehner, who has skated with the full group since camp begin on Monday, has been particularly impenetrable. On Wednesday, Patrick Brown scored on him and the entire team cheered, celebrating that someone finally beat him.

Marc-Andre Fleury didn’t arrive to camp until Friday but hasn’t appeared to miss a beat. He’s stymied his teammates as much as Lehner.

Only one goalie can start Game 1 of the playoffs, so decision time is coming soon. But right now, Vegas is happy to have two goalies ready to start a playoff game.

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