Karlsson’s Return Offers First Look At Post-Deadline Healthy Forward Lines

With the Golden Knights expecting to welcome William Karlsson back into the lineup tonight, there were some tough decisions to make for Bruce Cassidy and the coaching staff.

The first, and arguably the most important, of those decisions was which player had to come out of the lineup completely. With other options such as Tanner Pearson, Brandon Saad, or Reilly Smith, Cassidy and Co. ultimately landed on Victor Olofsson as the one to draw out.

Olofsson has struggled to generate offense for the better part of two months now. Since January 24th, he has just three points in 18 games and has not scored a single goal. Olofsson lost his spot on the power play to Pavel Dorofeyev when he was injured earlier in the year, and his overall game has suffered. He’s attempted just 43 shots with 22 of them drawing a save. A little more than one shot per game, zero goals in nearly 20 games, and just two even-strength points made him the right man to take out, at least for now.

Next, with Reilly Smith back in the fold along with a newcomer since Karlsson went down, Brandon Saad, there were plenty of options as to which way to stack the forward lines. The first decision had to be which center would shift over to the wing with Karlsson slotting back into the middle.

I’ve liked Howden in the middle, he’s really good there. He’s a different player than Nic Roy, they are both north-south players but a little different ways to get there. He’s been good with Kolesar and Barbashev. -Cassidy

From there, Cassidy looked to find some familiarity in the lineup, so he went straight back to VGK’s best forward line this season.

I’ve said all along that Barbashev, Jack, and Stone will probably find their way together. -Cassidy

Then, matching Karlsson and Smith to try and rekindle an old spark seemed obvious.

Because they ‘speak the same language’ since they’ve played together so often, that part should be seamless. -Cassidy

Nic Roy stood along as the de facto option to play alongside them.

We have Mark Stone and Kolesar that are right shots, so who can play their off side? I think moving Nic Roy to the right was a good choice for us because he shoots right, he did play in the playoffs here with Karlsson and Smith as a threesome in the Edmonton series. So that’s what it came down to, it was an easier fit, simple as that. -Cassidy

Finally, a replacement was needed on the fourth line to play with Howden and Kolesar, and the path of least resistance meant leaving Tomas Hertl, Pavel Dorofeyev and Brandon Saad together, so it was Tanner Pearson.

Pearson a good fit to give that same flavor of forecheck, straight line, we’ll find out. -Cassidy

Here’s how it all shakes out.

Barbashev-Eichel-Stone
Saad-Hertl-Dorofeyev
Smith-Karlsson-Roy
Pearson-Howden-Kolesar

This is the first time Vegas have had the full complement of forwards available to them since the acquisitions and it gives a pretty good indication of what Cassidy feels most comfortable with as the playoff approach. There’s obviously plenty of time for shifting to occur with these 12, but often a coach’s first instinct holds a lot of weight.