COVID-19 Strikes: Golden Knights face More Challenges

The Vegas Golden Knights had a busy day after having an extended Christmas break. With multiple teams around the league having to get their games postponed, the league shut down all games through the 29th.

It was reported yesterday that the NHLPA and NHL reached an agreement that will help keep teams more stable through the ups and downs of COVID-19. Lucky for the Knights, this wasn’t originally directed towards them, but it could be now after some, unlucky, news.

The Vegas Golden Knights have had to deal with a ton of injuries this season that sidelined a vast majority of their top players. Now, they have a new challenge: COVID-19.

The Vegas Golden Knights are in a great spot given everything that they’ve had to overcome. Right as things seemed to be going the Knights way, things have begun to turn back around. There was a bunch of news today, and not much was good.

Players Placed in COVID-19 protocol

It was reported by the Vegas Golden Knights twitter that they have placed the following in COVID-19 protocol:

• Head coach- Pete DeBoer
• Defenseman(A)- Alex Pietrangelo
• Forward- Brett Howden
• Forward- Evgenii Dadonov

Players Who Didn’t Practice Today

Unfortunately for the Golden Knights, there is more than just that. There were a number of impactful players who did not participate today. Here’s the list of players who didn’t practice:

• Forward(C)- Mark Stone
• Forward(A)- Max Pacioretty
• Goalie- Robin Lehner

It was reported by The Athletic’s, Jesse Granger, that: Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty, and Robin Lehner are all considered game-time decisions against the Los Angles Kings on Tuesday.

Players Who Were Called Up

The Vegas Golden Knights, as you can infer from above, are going through some tough times. And it get’s hard to read into these too much, but there were some players who were called up that makes it easy to jump to conclusions. So I’ll get more into that after the list;

• Forward- Jake Leschyshyn
• Forward- Jonas Rondbjerg
• Defenseman- Daniil Miromanov
• Goalie- Logan Thompson

So as you can see by this list, the Knights are not going to keep three goalies on their roster. So with that being said, It’s likely that Robin Lehner could be heading to the IR.

Players Who Practiced

So since I’m actually typing this out I’m assuming you can understand that one of the players could be returning soon. Care to venture a guess? Well, I’ll just tell you: Nolan Patrick. That’s right, he’s back and practicing with the fourth-line in a normal jersey. Getting Patrick back in a time like this would be incredible given their current circumstance.

Things are not looking good for the Vegas Golden Knights to finish 2021, but hopefully they can come back stronger than ever. They’ve made due without some of these players before, they can do it again.