Throughout much of the offseason after the shocking trade of Pavel Dorofeyev to the New York Rangers, one question dogged the Vegas Golden Knights: how did they plan to sustain their offense without him? After all, Doro potted 35 and 37 goals in each of the last two seasons, accounting for roughly 13% and 14% of VGK's total goals those years. That's no insignificant amount, to say the least.
Free agency didn't inspire a ton of confidence either, with the Golden Knights taking a more low-key approach to things after the Finals loss. There was no mega-name scorer brought in this time, with Dylan Larkin remaining in Detroit. Instead, Victor Olofsson returned after a one-year sojourn, again with hopes of converting his wicked shot into more consistent production. Aside from him, the hope was to fill the gap via Brett Howden's newly-unlocked scoring streak, a resurgence from the likes of Tomas Hertl or Rasmus Andersson, and ideally, a rookie or two stepping up. Now, did it work?
Yes, yes it did.
The Golden Knights' offense has been an utter machine
10 games into the year, Vegas' offense has scored five goals or more five times, including a dominant 5-2 victory on opening night. That includes three six-goal efforts, with two of those coming in just the last two games. Now, we hit six goals three times in the first ten last year as well, but again, that was when the offense wasn't as much of a question.
More impressively, Vegas' 41 goals currently lead the entire NHL, with their 4.10 goals per game ranking third; only the offensive juggernaut Oilers and Avalanche are better. That's pretty good company for this team to be in, given the prior concerns about scoring. The even more surprising thing is that the plan to rely on depth to replace Dorofeyev has, thus far, worked flawlessly.
Only two Golden Knights (Mark Stone and Jack Eichel) rank in the top 25 in goals across the NHL. Rather, 13 of 20 skaters for Vegas have at least one goal thus far, with 12 having at least two and six sitting at or above the four-goal mark. To boot, of those seven skaters without a goal, five have at least one point, meaning they've at least somewhat contributed offensively; only low-scoring defenseman Jeremy Lauzon and terrible-start-suffering Parker Wotherspoon are currently posting a donut in that category.
There's admittedly been a bit of luck involved, as we're currently sitting at 6.22 goals above expected; however, even with that, our 34.78 expected goals for sits second in the league, only trailing the very team we lost the Finals to.
Individual performers have stepped up
Now, even with all I mentioned about depth, that's not to say certain individuals haven't gone nuclear. Jack Eichel is, unsurprisingly, off to yet another hot start, dropping 18 points through those ten games. He's shooting a bit more often and a bit better, with five goals among that total. Mark Stone in particular has been ridiculous in the last few games, with a natural hat trick against Calgary and another goal against the Penguins.
There's been work from those management needed to perform as well. Impressively, the aforementioned Olofsson was looking like a plug-and-play replacement for Dorofeyev, potting four goals through four games before suffering an injury. Trevor Connelly, our former first-round pick that made the roster out of camp, has added four goals of his own thus far, with his goals and seven points leading all NHL rookies at the moment and firmly putting him into Calder Trophy consideration.
Oh, and Dorofeyev? While I wish the absolute best for one of our few homegrown guys, early returns make it look like we won that trade handily.
We'll see how long the guys in gold can keep it up, but for now, I'm enjoying the ride, and I imagine it'll get even better when Olofsson returns.
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