{"id":419043,"date":"2026-01-19T09:40:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T09:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/419043\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T09:40:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T09:40:24","slug":"nhl-edge-stats-andersson-trade-solidifies-golden-knights-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/419043\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL EDGE stats: Andersson trade solidifies Golden Knights defense"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NHL.com&#8217;s fantasy staff continues to cover the latest trends and storylines in the League through the lens of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NHL EDGE<\/a> puck and player tracker stats. Today, we take a look at the Vegas Golden Knights\u2019 outlook after acquiring defenseman Rasmus Andersson.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>The Vegas Golden Knights acquired defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/rasmus-andersson-8478397\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rasmus Andersson<\/a> from the Calgary Flames on Sunday, and his well-rounded advanced metrics should only strengthen their Stanley Cup championship push.<\/p>\n<p>The 29-year-old, who can become an unrestricted free agent after this season, ranked among the defenseman leaders in goals (10; tied for eighth), shots on goal (112; tied for ninth) and power-play goals (four; tied for fifth) at the time of the trade. Andersson was having a bounce-back season in terms of points (30 in 48 games; tied for 20th) at the time of the trade after only having 31 in 81 games last season.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of the trade, Andersson was averaging a career-best 0.63 points per game this season; he has also had strong offensive seasons in the past, with his highest totals being 50 points in 82 games during the 2021-22 season (0.61 per game) and 49 points in 79 games (0.62) during the 2022-23 season.<\/p>\n<p>Andersson, who was averaging 24:14 per game (16th in entire NHL) this season at the time of the trade, reunites with former teammate and fellow workhorse defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/noah-hanifin-8478396\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Noah Hanifin<\/a>, who was acquired by Vegas from Calgary on March 6, 2024; the two frequently played on the same defense pair with the Flames and could end up on the same unit again in Vegas.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the Andersson trade, Hanifin was second on the Golden Knights in average ice time (23:42 per game) behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/shea-theodore-8477447\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shea Theodore<\/a> (23:48). Vegas, which has been without veteran defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/nhl-edge\/skaters\/alex-pietrangelo-8474565\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Pietrangelo<\/a> (hip injury) all season and may not have him back for the postseason, is now equipped for another Stanley Cup run (won its first title in 2023).<\/p>\n<p>Here are three underlying reasons Andersson could boost the Golden Knights\u2019 championship hopes:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHL.com&#8217;s fantasy staff continues to cover the latest trends and storylines in the League through the lens of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-419043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}