Golden Knights Takeaways; Red Wings Youth Shines, Brossoit Struggles

The Vegas Golden Knights finished off a four-game road trip taking home exactly half of the available points. The team is once again at a .500 record as they sit 6-6 after tonight’s loss to the Detroit Red Wings.

Special teams played a big part in the game in the first period as the Golden Knights, despite breaking through last game, the powerplay went 0-2. In the two opportunities, the Detroit Red Wings got in the first period they scored on both. Despite a much better effort than Saturday’s effort in Montreal, the Gold Knights found themselves down 3-1 at the end of one.

“I thought we played really well in the first. But they added two power-play goals and that was unfortunate but I thought our game overall was not too bad… today I think the fact that they scored twice on the power play in the first is what killed us,” said Jonathan Marchessault.

Marchessault, who has four goals in the past three games, scored again tonight and continues to be the Golden Knight’s best offensive forward currently. But he needs some help.

Vegas Golden Knights Takeaways vs Red Wings

The Depth Needs to Step Up

With the injury situation, the Vegas Golden Knight’s continue to deal with more and more players who have been thrown into the lineup as patchwork. There have been some such as Nicolas Roy, and Chandler Stephenson who have embraced this increased role, but many others that have not.

The expectations are low for players like Jonas Rondbjerg, Michael Amadio, and Jake Leschyshyn as they are players that have been practically thrown into the lineup because of injuries. But for NHL regulars like William Carrier, Mattias Janmark, Evgenii Dadonov, and Brett Howden things need to change.

Teams that go deep in the Stanley Cup Playoff do so because of their depth. If the Golden Knight’s depth forwards struggle to score with increased ice time, then what happens when players come back and their ice time is reduced?

The Red Wings are forming a dynasty

Okay maybe that is a little bold of a statement to make so early on but with tonight being the first time I have seen the Red Wings this season, a lot impressed me.

Lucas Raymond is making his case for the Calder memorial trophy as the NHL’s top rookie and he is only nineteen. Moritz Seider who has ten points in twelve games could be a future Norris Trophy winner as well.

The Red Wings have a perfect balance of youth and veterans in their lineup with guys like Marc Staal, Sam Gagner, and Thomas Greiss who played well tonight against the Golden Knights.

They have also found some great project pieces in Robbi Fabbri and Pius Suter who continue to prove people wrong. Add that to all the other young pieces they have which include Dylan Larkin and Tyler Bertuzzi who were both flying on Sunday, the Red Wings could very well be a top team in the NHL sooner rather than later.

I am fascinated by how well this rebuild has gone for the Red Wings so far and commend Steve Yzerman for what he has done to and for this team.

Not the best night for Brossoit

Robin Lehner has given the Golden Knights everything he possibly can in the early stages of the season. Head coach Peter DeBoer said recently that he wanted to play Lehner as much as possible to start the season because of Lehner’s offseason surgery. This has left Laurent Brossoit on the bench for most of the start of the season.

Tonight, he looked a little shaky at times and unlike Lehner, was not able to give the Golden Knights a bail-out save every now and then. Pius Suter absolutely roofed a goal on Brossoit in the first period which stunned the netminder. Later on, Vladislav Namestnikov scored on a bad angle shot, a goal that Brossoit would like to have back.

With the Golden Knight not playing until Tuesday night, Robin Lehner will likely get the start against the Seattle Kraken. You have to wonder when Brossoit’s next game will be and if he will be able to bounce back after tonight.

Overall, the Golden Knights finish the road trip at exactly .500, something a team with Stanley Cup aspirations should look down upon as they currently sit out of a playoff spot early on this season.

“When you go 500 on a road trip it’s just OK it could’ve been a great road trip if we won tonight we will have to just bring it back home and get the energy from our crowd and play from there,” said Marchessault.