Knights Lehner Out For Season
The Vegas Golden Knights will be without goalie Robin Lehner for the entire upcoming season. Lehner is recovering from offseason hip surgery and that will leave the Knights scrambling to find a replacement.
Already on the roster for the Knights are three goalies, two of whom saw some playing time last season when Lehner was out.
Logan Thompson played 19 games for Vegas last season but is still relatively inexperienced although he did play well, going 10-5 for the Knights.
Vegas also has on the roster Laurent Brossoit, who played in 24 games for the team last season and has played in 106 games total in his career. In the games he played for the Knights last season, Brossoit wasn’t quite as good in goal as Thompson was, going 10-9. Brossoit underwent offseason surgery himself and his health could be an issue.
There are a lot of Golden Knights fans who say that the worst thing the team ever did was to get rid of goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who the Knights did not re-sign after the 2020-2021 season and I wholeheartedly agree with that assessment.
The free agent market for goalies across the NHL is pretty scarce as the season approaches although there may be some options out there. Because the Knights are constantly battling the salary cap however being able to sign a good goalie won’t be easy. The trade market doesn’t look favorable for the Knights either, again due to salary cap restrictions.
The best bet for Vegas at this point seems to be rolling with Logan Thompson to start the season. He’s young and only has 20 NHL games under his belt but he did play well in the games in which he saw action last season and he had the best save percentage and high danger save percentage on the team.
With new head coach Bruce Cassidy coming in there will be a new system implemented which will be designed to limit the opposing team’s odd man rushes.
Faithful Knights fans will be rooting for the team no matter who’s in goal though. Training camp opens for the Knights on Wednesday, Sept. 21 with the first preseason game scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 25 in Denver vs the Avalanche.
