The Vegas Golden Knights went into yesterday’s game having won two straight games. Things were starting to feel more normal despite the absences of multiple key players. However, yesterday felt more like the Knights we’ve seen over the past couple weeks.
There wasn’t a lot of intensity from any of the Golden Knight players, but yet, it still wasn’t a bad game. It more or less looked like they were just outmatched which is understandable.
First Takeaway
The Minnesota Wild went into yesterday’s game with pretty much everyone healthy. The Golden Knights on the other hand, were most definitely not healthy.
The Golden Knights were without: Robin Lehner, Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty, Alec Martinez, Zach Whitecloud, Brayden McNabb, Nicolas Hague, Michael Amadio, Reilly Smith, and Evgenii Dadonov. However, I’m not exactly sure I should be counting Dadonov as apart of the team or not. That’s still to be determined. The point is, they definitely weren’t healthy going into the game.
That brings me to my next point which is that the Golden Knights lineup, outside of the top two lines, was filled with people from the Henderson Silver Knights. When that happens, you can’t really expect yourself to beat teams as talented as the Minnesota Wild.
The Wild are way to talented of a team to expect a roster compiled of sub-par players to go out there and win the hockey game. Now, I’m not saying that in a series of five games that they couldn’t win one, but in a one game span- it’s unlikely. But that brings me to my third point.
Second Takeaway
When you look back on this game, there is one thing that stands out for the Golden Knights- Logan Thompson.
Logan Thompson has made multiple appearances since Lehner went down with an injury. In those appearances, he’s not only made multiple quality starts, he showed signs of actually being a reliable backbone for a struggling Golden Knights team.
In his start against the San Jose Sharks a couple weeks ago, Thompson played remarkable. Tonight, being his seventh start this season, he played very well. He was under a lot of pressure facing a team like the Wild but he remained poised and made multiple great saves.
If Thompson can continue playing the way he has been, he could try to beat out Laurent Brossoit for the backup job next season.