Vegas Golden Knights
The process was elite. The crease was not.
Vegas had one of the best underlying profiles in the league, the 29th-best goaltending, three coaches in three months and a run to the Stanley Cup Final. Our model rates the Knights as the class of the Pacific, but an aging core, a lost 37-goal scorer and a first-time head coach keep us a little cooler than the sportsbooks.
The bettor's bottom line
- Best in the Pacific, not best in the West. B- rating, 6th in the league and the highest in the division, about 102 points over 84 games. The sportsbooks sit at 103.5.
- The goalie debate matters less than it sounds. Our projection has Carter Hart and Adin Hill almost level. The difference between them on a given night is small; the difference between last season's goaltending and an average season is not.
- Watch the centers. Eichel, Karlsson and Hertl carry the lineup down the middle. When Karlsson sits, the second line loses its best defensive player and the price should move.
- Expect tight games. Vegas gave up the third-fewest shot attempts in the league, and our scoring ratings see a top-five defense and a lower-event team than its reputation.
- Fair regulation price against a league-average opponent: at home 46.6% win / 23.3% draw / 30.2% loss (2.15 / 4.30 / 3.31). On the road 39.1% win / 23.3% draw / 37.6% loss (2.56 / 4.29 / 2.66).
On March 29, Vegas had lost 12 of 17, and the Golden Knights fired Bruce Cassidy. John Tortorella took over, rode Carter Hart in net, and the team that had looked tired all winter beat Utah and Anaheim in six, swept the Presidents' Trophy-winning Avalanche and came within two wins of the Cup before Carolina closed it out in Game 6. Two days later Tortorella was gone too. Ryan Craig, the coach of the organization's AHL team, is the third man behind the bench in three months.
So which Vegas was real? The 95-point regular season that finished 12th overall, or the team that went through the West in the spring?
Our answer: mostly the spring team, with an asterisk. Measured on the chances it created and allowed, Vegas was a top-five team all season. Its goaltending was among the worst in the league, and that is the part that usually does not repeat. What holds the rating back is what changed after the Final: Pavel Dorofeyev is a Ranger, the core is one of the oldest in the league, and the new coach has never run an NHL bench.
That makes us a little cooler than the crowd. Daily Faceoff picks Vegas to win the Pacific, VSiN leans over the 103.5-point total, and one bold prediction has the Knights at 113 points and first in the West. We agree on the division: nobody else in the Pacific rates close. We are less sure about the rest. The most common worry, replacing Dorofeyev's goals, is real in our numbers too. The second, Hart or Hill, matters less than the talk suggests.
1What last season really was
The standings undersold this team. The goaltending explains almost all of the gap.
| Measure | VGK | NHL rank | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standings points | 95 | 12th | 1st in the Pacific |
| Goals for / against | 264 / 242 | +22 goal differential | |
| Expected-goals share, all situations (MoneyPuck) | 54.0% | 5th | Among the league's best |
| Expected-goals share, our shot-type recalibration | 53.9% | 4th | Still top five after recalibration |
| Score-adjusted shot-attempt share | 52.1% | 7th | Controlled play most nights |
| Finishing, goals above expected | -0.9 | 15th | Average shooting luck |
| Goaltending, goals saved above expected (GSAx) | -16.5 | 29th | -13.0 in the first half, -3.6 in the second |
Vegas outchanced opponents almost every night and finished right about where its chances said it should. The goals it gave up are where the season went sideways. After four straight seasons of above-average goaltending, the crease came in 16.5 goals below expected, 29th in the league. Adin Hill lost 10 goals to expectation in five January starts alone. Goaltending swings like that rarely carry over, and once they are stripped out, last season's Vegas looks like a top-four team.
The late slide that cost Cassidy his job was not a goaltending story, though. Vegas took 48 points in the first half and 47 in the second, while its goaltending improved from 13.0 below expected to 3.6 below. The team simply looked tired, which is also why an older roster is our main worry for this season.
2How the model builds Vegas's ranking
Our preseason rating starts from how well a team actually played last season, with luck stripped out, and then adds only what has historically carried over from one season to the next.
The starting point is near the top. With average goaltending, last season's Vegas plays like one of the four or five best teams in the league. That is the strongest foundation in the Pacific by a distance.
Age pulls it down the most. Only four teams have an older projected lineup. Stone is 34, McNabb 35, Dowd 36, Karlsson 33 and Hertl 32. Older teams tend to lose ground from one season to the next, and this is the biggest single drag on the rating.
The roster is close to even. Dorofeyev was the best player to leave, and Kolesar, Sissons, Korczak, Reilly Smith and Saad took depth with them. The additions are cheaper and mostly smaller roles, but a full season of Rasmus Andersson balances it out on our numbers.
Finishing and goaltending history are close to neutral. Over three seasons, strong years in net offset last season's collapse, and the shooters have been about average.
Summer moves: in and out
| Player | Pos | Role | From | 2025-26 | Grade | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parker Wotherspoon | D | Shutdown / PK | Pittsburgh | 80 GP · 3 G · 30 P | B- | Small plus. A steady, defense-first partner who played 80 games in Pittsburgh and takes Korczak's spot. |
| Victor Olofsson | LW | Middle-six all-rounder | Calgary | 78 GP · 13 G · 31 P | D+ | Small. Back in Vegas, where he scored 15 goals in 56 games two seasons ago. A cheap bet on finishing in a third-line role. |
| Marc Gatcomb | C | Energy / physical | NY Islanders | 49 GP · 3 G · 7 P | D | Small. Speed and energy on the fourth line in Kolesar's old job. |
| Trevor Connelly | LW | Playmaker | Draft, No. 19 overall (2024) | No NHL games last season | n/a | The wild card. The 2024 first-round pick won a job in his first full camp. No NHL record to grade yet. |
| Player | Pos | Role | To | 2025-26 | Grade | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keegan Kolesar | RW | Energy / physical | Detroit | 82 GP · 6 G · 17 P | D- | Small loss. Physical fourth-liner, easy to replace on the numbers. |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | LW | Sniper | NY Rangers | 82 GP · 37 G · 64 P | A- | Real loss. Team-high 37 goals and a power-play finisher. Traded to the Rangers for picks when Vegas could not afford his next contract. |
| Kaedan Korczak | D | Sheltered puck mover | Pittsburgh | 78 GP · 3 G · 16 P | C+ | Small. Third-pair defenseman, replaced by Wotherspoon. |
| Reilly Smith | RW | Middle-six all-rounder | UFA, unsigned | 69 GP · 16 G · 26 P | C | Small loss. Useful middle-six veteran, still unsigned. |
| Colton Sissons | C | Net-front depth | Toronto | 66 GP · 6 G · 11 P | C | Small loss. Depth center and penalty killer. |
| Ben Hutton | D | Sheltered puck mover | Ottawa (tryout) | 55 GP · 6 G · 15 P | D | None. Depth defenseman, now on a tryout in Ottawa. |
| Brandon Saad | LW | Net-front depth | UFA, unsigned | 49 GP · 3 G · 9 P | D | None. Nine points in 49 games. |
| Akira Schmid | G | Goalie | Florida | 34 GP · -1.0 GSAx | C- | Small loss. The steadiest Vegas goalie in the first half. His exit leaves no proven third option behind Hart and Hill. |
| Cole Smith | C | Net-front depth | Chicago | 21 GP · 2 G · 2 P | C+ | None. Fourth-line depth. |
Net: the top of the lineup is intact and the depth is lighter. Dorofeyev's goals are the one hole that matters, and nobody arriving is a like-for-like replacement.
One addition from last season helps more than any summer signing. Rasmus Andersson arrived from Calgary in January and played only 33 games in Vegas. A full season of him on the second pair and the second power-play unit makes the blue line deeper than last season's totals show.
The goalies are a wash. The coach is a small minus. Hart and Hill project as almost the same goalie, both close to league average, so the crease barely moves the rating. First-time NHL head coaches start slightly below average in our model, because we have no NHL record to judge them by. Craig knows this roster better than most new hires, and that is something the numbers cannot see.
The result is a B- team, 6th in the league, projected for about 102 points. Dallas sits just above, Florida and Montreal just below, and no other Pacific team is in the top ten. The sportsbooks are a point or two higher, a gap small enough that we read it as agreement with a lean. The bigger question for bettors is how Vegas plays in October, before the age and the new structure show up in the results.
3The projected lineup
Our projected opening-night lineup. Each player shows his 2026-27 grade (A to E, with a 0-100 score: his percentile among NHL regulars at his position), his role and last season's numbers. Goalies are graded the same way against the league's 64 starters and backups.
Reading the lineup
The top six is still elite. Eichel grades A (91) after 90 points in 74 games, and Marner put up 80 in his first season in Vegas. Stone scored 28 goals in 60 games and grades A at 34. The question every preview asks about Stone is health, and it is the right one: he missed 22 games last season.
The weak spot is the second-line left wing. Brett Howden has the job and grades D+. He scored 14 in the playoffs but 12 in the regular season. That is the slot Dorofeyev used to fill, and it is where the lineup drops off fastest.
Three real centers. Karlsson grades A- on a small sample after he missed most of last season, and Hertl gives Vegas a third-line center who would be a second-line center on most teams. Rookie Trevor Connelly starts on Hertl's wing; Jack Eichel called him "really noticeable" in camp. Dowd, Gatcomb and Bowman make a quick, simple fourth line.
The blue line is deep. Rasmus Andersson grades B+ and is the best defenseman on the roster by our numbers, ahead of Theodore (B), McNabb and Hanifin (both B-). Theodore quarterbacks the power play with McNabb as his shutdown partner, and Wotherspoon and Andersson make a sensible second pair. Hanifin finished camp on the third pair next to Lauzon, which is less of a demotion than it looks: every pair has a B-grade defenseman on it.
4Who matters most
Vegas's price starts with Eichel, as everyone expects. The less obvious names are the other two centers. Karlsson and Hertl play in every situation, and when one of them sits, the minutes go to a fourth-liner or a winger playing out of position. Vegas was two wins from the Cup with a healthy middle, then lost the last two games of the Final after Karlsson broke his wrist early in Game 5.
On defense the same logic applies. Defensemen who play big minutes matter more to the nightly price than their point totals suggest, because their minutes go to someone worse. The market reacts to star forwards. It moves much less when a top-four defenseman sits.
5Goaltending: the crease that cost a coach
Vegas used four goalies last season, and none of them was good for long. Hill hurt his leg in October, came back to a disastrous January and finished at .871. Hart joined in December, was hurt in January and came back to carry the playoff run. Akira Schmid, the steadiest of the group in the first half, is now in Florida.
| Goalie | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adin Hill | -1.0 (5) | -10.0 (5) | -1.4 (3) | -1.5 (13) | -0.3 (1) | -14.2 | ||
| Akira Schmid | -2.1 (6) | +0.8 (9) | -0.5 (5) | +3.1 (8) | -0.6 (2) | -1.7 (4) | -1.0 | |
| Carl Lindbom | +0.2 (2) | -4.5 (5) | +0.2 (1) | -4.1 | ||||
| Carter Hart | -5.6 (9) | -3.6 (3) | +5.0 (6) | -4.2 |
The crowd frames this as a battle: Hart owns the crease after the Final, Hill has to prove himself, and it is the team's biggest question. Our projection sees two goalies within a whisker of each other, both close to the middle of the league. Hart's playoff run was uneven, and Hill's regular season was among the worst in the league, but three seasons of work say neither is as bad as his worst stretch.
Craig has said both will play early. The real upside is simpler than who starts: Vegas does not need a star, only an average season. Its goaltending has been above average in four of the last five years. A return to normal is worth more than any skater Vegas could have signed, and it is already part of the rating. With no proven third goalie after Schmid's exit, an injury to either one would hurt more than usual.
6Vegas's system: how they score and defend
Ryan Craig spent six seasons as a Vegas assistant, including the 2023 Cup year, and three as head coach in Henderson. He has no NHL record of his own, so the coach profile below is empty. What we can read is the team he inherits: Vegas already plays a structured, low-event game that keeps opponents to the outside.
| Measure | Value | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Archetype | no NHL history | No NHL record yet |
| Own shot attempts per 60 | n/a | No NHL sample |
| Shot attempts against per 60 | n/a | No NHL sample |
| Blocked shots per 60 | n/a | No NHL sample |
| Hits per 60 | n/a | No NHL sample |
| Coach value beyond the roster | First-year coach | No NHL games; first-time head coaches start slightly below average |
| Measure | VGK | League avg | Rank of 32 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offense | |||
| Goals (non-empty net) | 255 | 238 | 10th most |
| Shot attempts | 3,572 | 3,470 | 11th most |
| Attempts from settled play (not rebound, rush or quick pass) | 85.8% | 85.4% | 9th highest |
| Attempts off the rush | 2.5% | 2.7% | 11th lowest |
| Goals off rebounds | 16.1% | 13.1% | 6th highest |
| Goals from inside 20 feet | 63.5% | 54.1% | 1st highest |
| Goals on the power play | 26.3% | 23.1% | 8th highest |
| Defense | |||
| Goals allowed (non-empty net) | 231 | 238 | 13th fewest |
| Opponent shot attempts | 3,165 | 3,470 | 3rd fewest |
| Share of opponent attempts from inside 20 feet | 28.6% | 31.6% | 2nd lowest |
| Rebound attempts allowed | 7.7% | 8.1% | 9th lowest |
| Goals allowed off rebounds | 12.6% | 13.1% | 15th lowest |
| Goals allowed while shorthanded | 19.0% | 23.1% | 3rd lowest |
Offense: get to the net. No team scored a larger share of its goals from inside 20 feet, and Vegas scored off rebounds more than most. The volume was only a little above average. The goals came from where the goalie cannot see them, which suits Stone and Hertl and suited Dorofeyev.
Defense: keep them outside. Vegas allowed the third-fewest shot attempts and the second-lowest share from inside 20 feet. That is the system that kept the team afloat while its goalies struggled, and Craig has every reason to keep it.
What it means for scoring. Vegas games averaged 6.17 goals last season: 3.22 for and 2.95 against per game, against a league average of 3.08 per team (6.16 per game). That total was inflated by the goaltending. Our team scoring ratings carry a middle-of-the-pack offense and a top-five defense into 2026-27, which makes Vegas one of the lower-event teams in the league once the crease steadies.
7Special teams
| Unit | Goals | Rank | Expected goals | Rank | Minutes / game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power play (for) | 9.19 | 3rd | 8.26 | 5th | 4.3 |
| Penalty kill (against) | 6.65 | 11th | 6.31 | 4th | 4.0 |
Both units were strong last season. The power play ranked third in goals and fifth in expected goals, and the penalty kill allowed the fourth-fewest expected goals in the league.
| Player | Unit | Job | 2025-26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Eichel | PP1 | The playmaker | 26 PP points |
| Mark Stone | PP1 | Half-wall passer | 26 PP points; 9 PP goals |
| Tomas Hertl | PP1 | Net-front finisher | 22 PP points; 13 PP goals, 11th in the NHL |
| Mitch Marner | PP1, PK1 | Flank playmaker, also kills | 21 PP points; 5 PP goals; 1:14 shorthanded per game |
| Shea Theodore | PP1, PK1 | Quarterback at the point | 4 PP points; 1:27 shorthanded per game |
| Brayden McNabb | PK1 | Top killer on defense | 2:18 shorthanded per game |
| William Karlsson | PK1 | Defensive center | 14 games; 1:18 shorthanded per game |
| Jeremy Lauzon | PK2 | Physical second-pair killer | 1:48 shorthanded per game |
How the power play works. It is built on passers. Eichel and Stone each had 26 power-play points, and Marner adds another elite playmaker on the flank. Hertl is the finisher in front, with 13 power-play goals, 11th in the league. Theodore runs the point.
The Dorofeyev hole. Pavel Dorofeyev is gone to the Rangers, and he scored 33 of his 72 goals over the last two seasons with the man advantage, 20 of them last season alone. That removes the unit's pure shooter. Eichel, Marner, Stone and Theodore will still create chances, but someone has to finish them, and Hertl can't be everywhere.
How the penalty kill works. McNabb and Lauzon clear the front on the back end, and Karlsson, who broke his wrist in the Final, returns as the defensive center. Marner and Stone also kill penalties, which is rare for a team's top scorers and one reason the unit allowed so few dangerous chances.
What to watch. The power play's conversion rate. Expect it to come down a little without Dorofeyev, while the penalty kill, built on structure rather than luck, should stay near the top of the league.
8What would change our view
- The second-line left wingIf Howden, Connelly or Olofsson gives the top six a third finisher, the Dorofeyev hole closes and the rating climbs.
- GoaltendingAn average season in net is already in our number. Another season near the bottom of the league would cost Vegas the division race.
- Age and healthStone, Karlsson and McNabb are the players most likely to miss time. Losing two of them for a stretch would drop Vegas toward the playoff line.
- Craig's structureIf Vegas keeps allowing the fewest chances in the league in October, the new coach has kept what worked.
- A short summerVegas played into June. A slow start would fit the calendar more than any real decline.
- Early-season formThe first 20 to 30 games say less than they seem. Hot and cold starts mostly reflect shooting and goaltending swings.