The Vegas Golden Knights may be getting one of their top two goaltenders back sooner rather than later.
When just about every Vegas Golden Knights goaltender got hit with the injury bug, the club had to reach out to 19-year old Dylan Ferguson to come and backup Maxime Lagace. We don’t know if he’ll even play or not. However, the Golden Knights got a bit of news that could help their goaltender situation in a significant way.
Malcolm Subban has been skating for the past two days and has been making some good progress. Head Coach Gerard Gallant stated that Subban will travel with the team on the upcoming two-game road trip. It doesn’t mean he will play, but practicing with the team is a positive step going forward.
Subban was originally supposed to miss approximately four weeks with a lower-body injury. So he’s ahead of schedule by about a week. This is great news for a team that was dying to hear some good news about any one of their injured goaltenders.
The Toronto, Ontario native came in and replaced starting goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury who suffered a concussion. Subban took over the crease and did very well for himself. In his Golden Knights debut, he played against the team that drafted him, the Boston Bruins.
Subban flourished after nearly picking up the shutout before Boston scored with 30 seconds left that spoiled the bid. He still picked up the win and the first win of his career. The 23-year old made 21 saves on 22 shots in an incredible defensive game.
He carried that effort over against the Buffalo Sabres where he picked up his second win, but it wasn’t easy. Subban allowed four goals before his team had to win in overtime. Allowing three of those goals in the last ten minutes of the game is definitely the most alarming part. However, the three goals were either unbelievable tips, bad luck or he couldn’t even see the puck. Subban ended with 30 saves on 34 Buffalo shots.
And perhaps the most impressive effort came against the mighty St. Louis Blues. Subban made 37 save on 38 shots before exiting the game with that dreaded lower-body injury. The amount of quality saves he made in this game was absolutely outstanding. He honestly looked like he belonged in an NHL crease after that performance.
Next: Vegas Golden Knights Gearing Up For Huge Western Canadian Road Trip.
All in all, if the Golden Knights get Subban back in one of these games, great. If not, Lagace will most likely play in both games on the road in western Canada. But just seeing Subban around in practice is an encouraging sign and that help is finally on the way.