Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Logan Thompson (36) is shown during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Chicago Blackhawks at T-Mobile Arena Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022.
Friday, Oct. 14, 2022 | 2 a.m.
By his own admission, Logan Thompson was shaking from the nerves in his NHL debut.
It’s hard to believe that was only a little more than year and a half and 21 game appearances ago after watching the Vegas Golden Knights’ goalie in a 1-0 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena.
The 25-year-old was as staunch as a stone wall when pucks were flying at him and looked as self-assured as a long-time veteran the rest of the time he was on the ice in the Golden Knights’ home opener.
Thompson stopped 27 shots — the same number of saves he also registered in a 4-3 season-opening win at Los Angeles on Tuesday — for the second shutout of his career.
“He was excellent,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said in his post-game news conference. “He needed to be.”
It’s supposed to be the other way around for the Golden Knights this season: Their crew of star-studded skaters are supposed to make up for an unproven set of goaltenders. Just don’t tell Thompson that.
Or maybe do tell him that, considering he’s openly driven by the haters and “keyboard warriors” that have continually counted him out. A lot of athletes express a similar motivation, so often, in fact, that any statement in that vein should elicit eyerolls.
But Thompson is an exception. He’s a player who’s had everything stacked against him with few, if any, believers in his corner — and he’s been through all that recently.
After making an impression in the one aforementioned appearance and a short stint with the team at the end of the 2020-2021 season, Thompson wasn’t even seriously considered as a backup option for Robin Lehner going into last year. Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon surely didn’t mean to denigrate Thompson back then, but it came off that way when he said he wanted to find an “NHL goalie” — eventually Laurent Brossoit — to be Lehner’s understudy.
It was a return to the Henderson Silver Knights for Thompson, where he had already dominated with back-to-back Goalie of the Month awards upon first arriving. At least that was preferable to where the attendee of Brock University in St. Catherine’s, Ontario, was two years ago when the NHL season began.
“I was in my one-bedroom college apartment eating pizza and drinking beer watching opening day,” Thompson reminisced in the locker room after beating the Blackhawks.
He was worlds away from that Thursday, admitting he never would have thought back then that his circumstances would change so drastically this quickly. Thompson received a roar from the sell-out crowd of 18,467 fans when he was announced as the starter pregame, and then gave them reasons to get even louder minutes later.
Thompson had the first highlight of the night when he turned away a shot from Andreas Athanasiou on a breakaway with a pad save. He then stopped a scoring chance from nine-time All-Star Patrick Kane.
The Golden Knights couldn’t keep the Blackhawks out of their zone, however, and Thompson had to make his best save later in the first period. He was on his side but stacked his pads amid traffic to save a shot wristed his way.
“I think that was just a holy (expletive) moment,” he said. “You see a guy a winding up for a shot and you just hopefully get big and it hits you right. I couldn’t get up, so luckily, it hit me.”
Thompson said the early success helped him settle in, but he didn’t have to do much the rest of the game. Even though Vegas never generated much offense, it bore down defensively and played much better in front of him in the second and third periods.
That's more along the lines of how the Golden Knights were expected to win this season in the wake of Lehner undergoing hip surgery that will keep him sidelined the whole year. That could be another case of selling Thompson short though, and by now, everyone should have learned their lesson in that regard.
Thompson proved doubters wrong at the end of last year when he nearly willed the Golden Knights to the playoffs when pressed into a starting role for 17 games at the end of the year because of Lehner's injury and Brossoit's ineffectiveness. And he's been even better so far this year.
He doesn't want to be seen as a liability or a weakness that the rest of the team needs to protect.
"We're not going to be able to put up four goals every night," Thompson said.
Thompson might be relatively new to all this, but he's shown he's more than capable of rising to the occasion. He's no longer scared of his moment in the NHL.
"He’s got a lot of confidence in himself,” forward Reilly Smith said. "He’s come into camp and wanted to prove himself to everyone. He’s a talented goalie and I think he’s going to keep on taking steps forward.”
Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or
