We are hurtling towards the regular season but the Vegas Golden Knights still has some work to do when it comes to fine-tuning their opening night roster.
October is nearly here and the Vegas Golden Knights have just three exhibition games left before they can close the book on the preseason and get ready for the eagerly anticipated regular season opener against the San Jose Sharks on Oct, 2.
However, this last slate of exhibition games will need to be taken seriously by the Golden Knights because they still have a handful of key decisions to make when it comes to their opening night roster.
We have done deep dive after deep dive on the intense battle for the last open roster spot on the blueline, while there is now an ongoing tussle for the left wing role on the third line. Those two roster headaches will go right down to the wire, but there is also one other conundrum that will need to be resolved in the coming days.
And that is the one we are going to start with as we go through the three biggest roster decisions that still need to be ironed out by the Vegas Golden Knights before the regular season gets underway next week…
1. Change of heart after all
What are we on about? Well let us explain. Earlier in the off-season Vegas Head Coach Gerard Gallant confirmed that he won’t be tinkering with his top six forward unit, which packs enough firepower to sink a small fleet of battleships.
Why fix what isn’t broken, after all.
Reilly Smith, William Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault are an established line and they are a proven commodity having combined for an incredible 381 regular season points over the course of the last two years.
All three players endured dips in production from an individual standpoint in 2018-19, but they are in line to all bounce back this year given that they won’t have to carry all of the burden when it comes to producing offense.
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That’s because the Golden Knights will be treated to a full year of Max Pacioretty, Paul Stastny and Mark Stone, and that trio could well form Vegas’ top line in 2019-20. They combined for 31 points (13 goals, 18 assists) in seven postseason contests and that is just a taster of what is to come given their star power.
However, is Gallant undergoing a change of heart already?
Maybe we’re reading too much into it but William Karlsson will play on a top line with Mark Stone and Jonathan Marchessault against the Colorado Avalanche tonight, reuniting the latter two who tore it up for Team Canada at the IIHF World Championships earlier in the summer.
Of course, Gallant has tinkered with his lines throughout the preseason but he could be tempted to restructure his top two lines should Karlsson, Marchessault and Stone tear it up tonight against the Avs.
Either way, the Golden Knights are absolutely stacked at the top end of their lineup and having options when it comes to rolling out different variations of that top six could be a secret weapon this year.