Lineup Has Settled In As The Playoffs Near

With just three games left in the regular season and a lot of rest/illness/injury causing a mishmashed lineup down the stretch, the Golden Knights will have to rely on what got them here once the playoffs begin.

Fortunately, both the forward lines and defense pairs have fallen into place up and down the lineup for Bruce Cassidy.

The top line of Jack Eichel, Mark Stone, and Ivan Barbashev have played a total of 37 games together, nearly double any other forward line combo on the roster. Even though there have been ideas of trying other options, either due to injury or circumstance, nothing ever stuck. Thus, that line will start together in Game 1 of the postseason and they’ll earn the highest share of even-strength minutes.

The middle-six has been a work in progress essentially the entire season. However, with the additions of Brandon Saad and Reilly Smith, it appears they’ve finally found the right mix. Tomas Hertl centers a line with Saad and Pavel Dorofeyev, while William Karlsson has reunited with fellow Misfit, Smith, alongside Victor Olofsson.

That leaves the four players to choose from to make a fourth line that has worked well together in many different forms. The most commonly used group is Tanner Pearson, Nic Roy, and Keegan Kolesar, and that will certainly be the trio in the event that Brett Howden is needed anywhere else up the lineup. But, with the other three lines likely settled in, Howden should slot into the left wing leaving Pearson in the press box to open the postseason.

Howden, Roy, and Kolesar have only played three games together and none since January 12th. That game however was against the likely first round opponent, the Minnesota Wild, and the VGK 4th line was dominant. They outshot Minnesota 6-0, scored a goal (Kolesar), and generated 83% of the expected goal share.

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

Meanwhile, on defense, the plan has shifted as the year went on. Cassidy and his defensive assistant John Stevens initially hoped to use Shea Theodore and Alex Pietrangelo as the top pair. That ended after just six games and Noah Hanifin stepped in with Pietrangelo while Theodore paired back up with Brayden McNabb.

The latter has been a staple for just about the entirety of VGK’s franchise history and they’ll be together to open the postseason. As for Hanifin and Pietrangelo, they played a healthy 44 games together (McNabb/Theodore played 52, no other pair played more than 28) but faced some adversity along the way.

Eventually, the Golden Knights made the swap, moving Nic Hague up to play with Pietrangelo and Zach Whitecloud with Hanifin. That has offered much more stability defensively for both pairs and appears to be the safest, and best, option moving forward.

McNabb-Theodore
Hague-Pietrangelo
Hanifin-Whitecloud

Unlike last postseason when they were still experimenting with lines through the entire first round, this year’s Golden Knights will enter the postseason with a much more cohesive unit. Cassidy won’t be shy to move pieces around if it’s not going well early in the series, but he’ll have a much more solid base to work with this year than he did last.