Since their inception in 2017, the Vegas Golden Knights have been the model of success in the National Hockey League.
They’ve won a Stanley Cup, made four trips to the conference finals and only missed the playoffs once. The Knights are almost certainly going to make it to the playoffs this year, but that doesn’t mean that they’re happy with where they’re at ahead of the postseason.
Vegas made waves last week when it fired head coach Bruce Cassidy and hired the fiery John Tortorella to replace him. Canning a coach this close to the playoffs as a playoff team is practically unheard of.
But something has been amiss with Vegas all year long. The Golden Knights rank just 19th in the league in points percentage heading into Monday’s games, only have 27 regulation wins, have a goal differential of plus-seven and have been banking loser points. The bottom has fallen out since the Olympic break for the Golden Knights, who are 8-10-2 in that span and 26th in points percentage.
Firing Cassidy amid a slump is a panic move for a team that really isn’t that bad. Far from it actually.
Vegas continues to be one of the league’s best teams when it comes to dominating play and actually have the best expected goals share (59 percent) since the Olympic break. The Golden Knights’ special teams units also both rank in the top 10 in the league overall. Vegas still has some of the same faces from the team that won the Cup, like Mark Stone, Jack Eichel and Shea Theodore. Plus, Mitch Marner has excelled in his first year in Vegas, and Pavel Dorofeyev has really come into his own. So what gives?
Part of it is due to injury, as the Golden Knights lead the league in man games lost to injury. Stone and Eichel have both missed some time this year, William Karlsson has played just 14 games, Alex Pietrangelo has been out for the year and starting goaltender Adin Hill was sidelined for nearly three months. Still, you would expect the impact of those injuries to show up in the underlying numbers, and that hasn’t happened.
Whenever a team with good underlying numbers underachieves, it’s usually because it’s either struggling to turn chances into goals or poor goaltending. Vegas has completely collapsed in both areas recently. PDO is a measure of a team’s “luck” by combining shooting and save percentages where 100 is average. At five-on-five, Vegas ranks 29th in PDO overall (98.0) and 30th since the Olympic break (96.0).
Let’s start with the goaltending, which has been a problem all year. Vegas has had three different goaltenders start double-digit games this season, and all three have allowed more goals than expected. Hill, who was between the pipes when Vegas won its Cup in 2023, has struggled immensely. Among the 54 goaltenders that have played at least 25 games, he ranks 51st in Goals Saved Above Expected at minus-15.3, per hockeystats.com. Hill’s struggles are worrying, not only because he’s supposed to be their franchise goaltender, but also because he’s getting paid $6.25 million per year through the 2030-31 season.
Behind him, Akira Schmid (minus-4.6 GSAx) and Carter Hart (minus-4.44 GSAx) haven’t fared much better. No team has a worse save percentage at five-on-five on the year than Vegas (.886).
It’s not as if the Golden Knights have been playing abysmal defense in front of their goaltenders, either. They allow the fewest expected goals per 60 at five-on-five (2.29) and the fourth-fewest shot attempts. It’s squarely on the goaltenders.
It also doesn’t help that Vegas’ finishing has completely tanked post-Olympic break as well. Vegas is 30th in five-on-five shooting percentage in that span and has scored just 56 goals on 72.1 expected at all strengths.
Tomas Hertl is basically the embodiment of who Vegas is as a team right now. Hertl is still a top-line-caliber forward, but he’s been unbelievably unlucky this year. Despite having a 55.6 percent expected goals share, Hertl has been outscored 39-50 at five-on-five, thanks to an .855 on-ice save percentage. Even worse, Hertl is Vegas’ leader in expected goals at all strengths with 34.8, but he’s only scored 24 times. It’s especially bad at five-on-five where he’s scored just five goals. Out of the 151 forwards that have played at least 900 minutes at five-on-five, Hertl’s 0.31 goals per 60 rank 148th.
There’s also a divide between Vegas’ top six and bottom six. Finding exact numbers on this is difficult, but let’s use Eichel and Marner to represent Vegas’ top two lines. They’ve only spent about 150 minutes together, and Vegas has crushed it when they’ve played together. Both players also have an expected goals share of roughly 57 percent away from each other as well as positive goal differentials (plus-19 for Marner, plus-13 for Eichel).
But without either player, Vegas has really struggled. Its expected goal share drops to 49.6 percent, and it’s a bloodbath on the scoreboard. Without Marner and Eichel, Vegas is getting outscored 93-54. It’s hard to hide that kind of disparity, especially in the playoffs.
On the whole, Vegas should be one of the best teams in the NHL, let alone the Western Conference. But the Golden Knights are being held back by their goaltending and a cold streak at the other end, and Cassidy paid the price for it. The question is if a coaching change is enough to reverse their fortunes.
Stats are from Natural Stat Trick unless noted otherwise