Vegas Golden Knights: Ryan Reaves struck by injury and other Media Day musings

The Vegas Golden Knights are officially back in work but they have endured a minor blow to the start of their Training Camp preparations.

It was back to it for the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday as they reported to Training Camp, with the franchise also holding their Media Day as was the case for other teams throughout the NHL. General Manager Kelly McCrimmon, who officially took on that title earlier this month, also took the opportunity to meet with the local media.

And it was this gathering that produced some notable news ahead of the preseason getting underway on Sunday, with our good friend Jesse Granger at The Athletic reporting that powerhouse forward Ryan Reaves will miss training camp with a minor injury sustained during summer workouts. He is rated as day-to-day.

Now, that news in a vacuum is alarming but let’s put the brakes on for a minute, chill out a little bit and look at the bigger picture. As Jesse clearly stated in his Tweet, it is only a minor injury and there is no indication that Reaves will miss the entire preseason.

Even if he does, a minor injury suggests that Reaves should be back for the 2019-20 regular season opener against the San Jose Sharks at T-Mobile Arena on Oct, 2, which is obviously very good news for everybody concerned.

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Reaves has proved that he’s instrumental to this team both on and off the ice since being acquired in a trade from the Pittsburgh Penguins on Feb, 26, 2018, morphing into a key glue guy in the locker room while playing a vital role on the ice.

While you do get what you see with Reaves in terms of his physical play and ability to drop the gloves and stick up for his teammates, the enforcer also proved that he can be a secret weapon in the offensive zone last year, achieving career-highs in goals (9), assists (11) and points (20).

Of course, there is a very realistic chance that Reaves goes back to the norm in 2019-20 and endures a significant dip in production, but he will still be an effective role player on the fourth line and he brings a bucketload of grit and toughness to the Golden Knights’ roster, which is still imperative in the modern day NHL as proved by the St. Louis Blues last year on their way to the Stanley Cup.

It goes without saying of course that we hope Ryan Reaves will make a speedy recovery and return to the fold at some point during the course of the preseason, although if he doesn’t it isn’t the end of the world given that it shouldn’t take him to long to get back into the swing of things once the regular season opens.

There were a couple of other nuggets that were of interest from the Vegas Golden Knights’ Media Day, including the fact that GM Kelly McCrimmon hammered home the fact that Malcolm Subban will be the team’s backup goalie to start 2019-20.

Subban has been the heir to Marc-Andre Fleury‘s throne for the last two years, including in 2018-19 where he posted a record of 8-10-2 with a 2.93 Goals Against Average and a .902 Save Percentage, making 552 saves from 612 shots against with one shutout.

However, the Golden Knights acquired goalie Garret Sparks in a trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs during the off-season, which led some to speculate that maybe Subban would face a battle for his backup role.

But that won’t be the case with McCrimmon confirming that Subban will enter the year as the franchise’s No. 2 goalie, with the Vegas General Manager giving the following quote to Jesse Granger at The Athletic:

“Malcolm Subban is our backup goalie. It’s like any other position, Malcolm is our backup and a really good young goaltender. With Garret Sparks and Oscar Dansk we thought it was a real good opportunity to strengthen the goaltending throughout the organization.”

Subban could have a bigger role to play this year with Fleury, who will turn 35 in November, still at the peak of his powers but he could benefit from some good old load management throughout the regular season in order to ensure he is as fresh as possible for the playoffs.

For Sparks, meanwhile, he will get chance to resurrect his career in the AHL with the Chicago Wolves where he will compete for the starting job with Oscar Dansk. Sparks has flourished in the AHL and he was key to the Toronto Marlies winning the Calder Cup Playoffs, posting a 2.22 Goals Against Average and a .915 Save Percentage in 19 games.

Finally, McCrimmon also revealed that the Golden Knights will go without a Captain for the third straight season, with the leadership being spread between four or five players instead. We did a feature earlier in the summer looking at the five most likely candidates to eventually wear the “C” on their chest for Vegas, which you can read here.

Thursday was largely fun and games at the Media Day for the Vegas Golden Knights, with some off-ice testing chucked in for good measure. However, the hard work truly begins today when the players hit the ice for the first time in 2019-20 with Arizona Coyotes coming up on Sunday in the preseason opener.