{"id":737666,"date":"2026-06-15T07:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T07:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/737666\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T07:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T07:58:13","slug":"reilly-smith-replaces-karlsson-for-golden-knights-in-game-6-of-cup-final-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/737666\/","title":{"rendered":"Reilly Smith replaces Karlsson for Golden Knights in Game 6 of Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cReilly has been a great teammate all season long,\u201d Vegas forward Colton Sissons<\/a> said before the game. \u201cI\u2019ve known his game for a long time, and he\u2019s played in many big games and has been part of a championship team. He\u2019s got the experience. He\u2019s a talented player that can really impact the game.”<\/p>\n

Karlsson was injured in the second period of a 4-2 loss in Game 5 on Thursday. The center was holding his left arm\/wrist following a hit by Hurricanes defenseman Sean Walker<\/a> at 8:26 and left the game. He was centering Vegas’ second line for most of the postseason since returning from a lower-body injury in Game 1 of the second round against the Anaheim Ducks on May 4 and has nine points (three goals, six assists) in 15 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously a big miss, he\u2019s done a lot of great things for us since coming back in the lineup,\u201d Vegas forward Mitch Marner<\/a> said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve done this all year, we\u2019ve had a lot of injuries throughout the year and throughout the playoffs. It obviously (stinks) losing Will, but it\u2019s a next-man-up mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith was selected by Vegas from the Florida Panthers in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft. He was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins on June 28, 2023, and the following offseason was acquired by the New York Rangers. Smith was reacquired by the Golden Knights on March 6, 2025, and is one of four original members still with the team, along with Karlsson, and defensemen Brayden McNabb<\/a> and Shea Theodore<\/a>. He helped Vegas reach the 2018 Cup Final in its first season with 22 points (five goals, 17 assists) in 20 playoff games.<\/p>\n

\u201cReilly is an original, he\u2019s had some big plays in this building,\u201d Vegas coach John Tortorella said. \u201cHe\u2019s been a great pro since he\u2019s sat out here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cReilly has been a great teammate all season long,\u201d Vegas forward Colton Sissons said before the game. \u201cI\u2019ve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-737666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}