Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb (3) tries to block a shot by San Jose Sharks right wing Filip Zadina (18) during the second period of an NHL hockey game at T-Mobile Arena Friday, Nov. 10, 2023.
Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Six and a half years ago, early in the morning after the Vegas Golden Knights had assembled their initial roster at the NHL expansion draft, the nascent franchise gathered five players for a round of media obligations.
Brayden McNabb drew the smallest crowd of cameras and recorders among the new teammates. Tucked away in his own private corner of the Armory team store at T-Mobile Arena, the young defenseman taken from the Los Angeles Kings was soft-spoken and reserved.
While the others expressed excitement about building a new team from the ground up, McNabb pleaded caution, knowing trades were coming and admitting that he wasn’t all that sure he would ever wear a full Golden Knights uniform.
It seems preposterous looking back.
While the other four players from the event are long gone one way or the other — Marc-André Fleury (Minnesota Wild), Deryk Engelland (retired and in the Golden Knights’ front office), Jason Garrison (retired) and Reid Duke (playing in Slovakia) — McNabb is closing in on his 450th career game on the ice in gold. That’s third all-time in the franchise record book for appearances behind William Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault, and by far the most among defensemen.
The timid 26-year-old trying to cement his spot in the NHL has now turned into a confident 33-year-old veteran who embodies many of the qualities that have made the Golden Knights one of the standard-bearing organizations in the league.
“It took me a little bit to find out who I was as a player,” McNabb said before a recent game. “I think I really found it when I came here.”
McNabb is the least statistically accomplished of the five original Golden Knights left on this year’s roster — Marchessault, Karlsson, Shea Theodore and William Carrier being the others — but that’s mostly by design. And it doesn’t make him any less valuable.
For seven years now, Vegas has taken pride in maintaining a strong defensive team. McNabb is the pillar of that identity with his unceasingly selfless playing style centered on hard hits, blocked shots and general disruption.
By thriving in his own niche, he’s endeared himself to three different coaching staffs and earned two contract extensions in a place where he wasn’t at first sure he would stick.
“Offensively, you want to chip in as much as you can, and if the opportunity arises, I’m going to try,” McNabb said. “But for me, it’s (about) my defensive end and being hard to play against.”
The 6-foot-4, 215-pound cornerstone put together one the best stretches of his career to help the Golden Knights get off to a historic start this season. Vegas got off to the best start of any defending Stanley Cup champion ever with seven consecutive wins to begin the year and 12 straight games before losing in regulation.
The success came despite a rash of injuries to Vegas’ blue line that put even more of the onus on McNabb and his longtime pairing partner Theodore to keep the defense afloat. Through 16 games, only one defensive pairing in the NHL (Seattle’s Vince Dunn and Adam Larsson) had logged more time on ice together than McNabb and Theodore.
And Vegas has largely reaped the benefits, claiming astronomical marks of 72.2% of the actual goal share and 56.16% of the expected goal share when the duo have played together, per naturalstattrick.com.
“What (McNabb) brings us is a complement to Theo in terms of shot blocking, doing the dirty work; he’s great in front of the net,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “He’s got a great hockey IQ, so he makes good decisions with his first touch, and that’s where some of his offense usually starts. You can use him with some offensive lines; some defensemen you just can’t. They can’t get the breakouts started, but he’s good in the neutral zone getting the puck to Theo at the right time and the offensive blue line as well.”
McNabb has never put together a better run of offensive contributions than he did to start this season. He managed to hit seven points on the year in just 13 games — nine contests sooner than he did a year ago in what was previously his fastest start.
On average through six seasons with the organization, it had taken McNabb 33 games to reach seven points, but he’s increased his role as a playmaker this year with some highlight-worthy assists.
None were more memorable than the Golden Knights’ first shorthanded goal of the year, on Nov. 4 against another top-tier Western Conference team, the Colorado Avalanche.
McNabb wound up like he was going to fire a slapshot from afar at Colorado goalie Alexandar Georgiev, who shifted in the defenseman’s direction. But McNabb instead whipped a pass to captain Mark Stone, who converted right in front of the net.
“He’s got that underrated ability back there,” Stone said after the eventual 7-0 win against the Avalanche. “I played against him in juniors, and he was one of the better offensive defensemen in the league at that time, so it’s there. But he’s just kind of accepted a role of being a big, bruising defenseman. But his ability, his smarts are there. We made a little bit of eye contact. I knew he wasn’t shooting. I knew he was coming to me, and I just had to be available.”
McNabb has tried to redirect the praise that has come his way to players like Stone and Theodore.
“My partner is playing pretty well so I usually give him the puck and good things happen,” McNabb said. “And I’ve got a lot of good teammates who are making plays, so I just try to get it to them and be on the right side of it.”
Humility is one trait that remains unchanged with McNabb. The initial days with the Golden Knights weren’t the only time he thought he could be headed out of town.
After Vegas traded for star center Jack Eichel two seasons ago, the team found itself in a salary-cap crunch and McNabb was one of the most rumored players to be traded and free up space on the financial ledger. He acknowledged those reports at the time, remarking that he hoped to retire a Golden Knight but understood the business aspect of the NHL.
Shortly after, and seemingly out of the blue, the Golden Knights instead extended him with a new deal that pays $2.8 million annually through next season. No matter what happens beyond that, a player who once feared he’d be a franchise footnote now has his own chapter in team history.
“He’s kind of an unsung hero for us,” Stone said. “He’s made a lot of great plays this year.”
This story originally appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.
