Golden Knights Injury Updates: Alex Pietrangelo, Max Pacioretty

After practice today at City National Arena, Vegas Golden Knights head coach Pete DeBoer updated the injury status of both Alex Pietrangelo and Max Pacioretty.

While VGK fans have been waiting with bated breath to hear any updates on the two star players, the post-practice media availability brought with it some good news.

DeBoer said that Max Pacioretty “had a real good skate this morning” but he had not talked to the player at that time.

“I do anticipate he’s going to come with us (to Colorado),” DeBoer said.

Pacioretty leads the Golden Knights in goals with 16 and is second to Mark Stone in points with 30 in 28 games. He also leads the team in power play goals with four.

Meanwhile Alex Pietrangelo is not going to make the trip to Colorado with the Golden Knights, but DeBoer said the free agent prize is making “big progress” and is “getting very close” to a return.

“I would call him more day-to-day now than week-to-week,” said DeBoer.

That’s tremendous news for the Golden Knights who haven’t had Pietrangelo in the lineup since March 6 against the San Jose Sharks, when it was speculated he suffered an upper body injury blocking a shot.

When Pietrangelo does come off Long Term IR, the VGK will once again have some cap juggling to do in order to get under the wire. We’ve seen them juggle players on and off the taxi squad depending on who is in and out of the lineup on any given night to make ends meet. Early in the season, the team even experimented with a five defenseman, 13 forward setup because the cap numbers made sense, but the results were sub-par.

The Vegas Golden Knights kick off a big two-game series with the Colorado Avalanche Thursday night in Denver.