Vegas Golden Knights: Takeaways Against the Canucks
By Evan Mead
Welcome Back, Captain
It’s been 12 games since the Vegas Golden Knights were able to see their captain out there with them. Being a NHL team, having a guy who not just helps produce on the ice but leads your team out there, picks guys up after a bad play, mentors young players to help them develop-it’s crucial.
With that, the Vegas Golden Knights finally, after 12 games was able to get their captain back out there with them yesterday against the Vancouver Canucks. Seeing captain, Mark Stone, back out there, it really gave some of the players hope-A spark if you will.
When looking at his performance he had a solid game when all-around. He had the late assist to Evgenii Dadonov to put the Vegas Golden Knights in a much better situation to win before winger, Jonathan Marchessault, sealed it. Outside of that assist, he didn’t really do much from a production standpoint, but he also definitely didn’t hurt the Knights by any stretch. However, reflecting on what the stat sheet’s don’t tell is going to make a big difference on a lot of people’s mindsets.
First, Stone was skating very well. Now, I don’t expect the Vegas Golden Knights to be as dumb as to play Stone if he could barely skate. But, he was able to not just able to skate but, he was able to skate at the NHL level. It’s one thing to be able to go into practice and skate laps around the ice, but being able to skate in game, it’s a different animal. You’re not just asked to skate but you have to skate at a high intensity and be able to accelerate on a dime.
Second, he was able to make plays along the boards. Now, Stone isn’t much of a banger like Brayden McNabb. Stone doesn’t really go after people and make big hits, but he was able to play strong on the puck along the boards and made a couple very good checks in the offensive zone.
Third, he was making smart decisions with the puck after the rough first shift he had. He made a couple very nice breakout passes in transition. To go along with that, he was able to not just manage but succeed, in the roles that he had prior to the injury. Maybe that doesn’t seem like anything crazy but that shows me that he is in fact, ready to return.
He’s been skating for awhile if the timeline sticks the way I think it did. However, after hearing head coach, Pete DeBoer, say that he was still quite far out from making his return-I wasn’t expecting him to return two days later. Regardless, he did and it was great to see him back out there.