{"id":735868,"date":"2026-06-14T08:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T08:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/735868\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T08:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T08:57:09","slug":"karlsson-absence-tough-hole-to-fill-for-golden-knights-in-game-6-of-stanley-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/735868\/","title":{"rendered":"Karlsson absence \u2018tough hole to fill\u2019 for Golden Knights in Game 6 of Stanley Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karlsson has nine points (three goals, six assists) in 15 playoff games. He was centering the Golden Knights\u2019 second line for most of the postseason since returning from a lower-body injury in Game 1 of the Western Conference Second Round against the Anaheim Ducks on May 4.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old sustained the lower-body injury Nov. 8 and missed the remainder of the regular season. He had seven points (four goals, three assists) in 14 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always tough to lose somebody and \u2018Karly\u2019 after a grinding season, it\u2019s tough to see stuff happen to him,\u201d Vegas forward Tomas Hertl<\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cIt\u2019s obviously a big loss, but we still have a good team, and we have to help each other and another guy has to step up and take more responsibility. It\u2019s a tough loss, obviously we\u2019d love to have him, but now we have to play without him, but we can definitely do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karlsson\u2019s return was credited as a big reason for the Golden Knights success in the playoffs, defeating the Ducks in the second round before sweeping the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final. Vegas defeated the Utah Mammoth in six games in the first round without Karlsson.<\/p>\n

His return to center the second line allowed Marner to move over to play right wing where he and left wing Brett Howden<\/a>\u00a0developed great chemistry.<\/p>\n

Marner leads the playoff scoring race with 29 points (10 goals, 19 assists), and Howden is first in goals this postseason with 14 (four assists, 18 points) in 21 games.<\/p>\n

With Karlsson out of the lineup, Marner may need to move back to center, where he played the majority of the season, but was not as effective offensively. Marner had 80 points (24 goals, 56 assists) in 81 games in his first season with the Golden Knights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see how it goes,\u201d Marner said. \u201cI think center-wise you just have to be a bit more patient with being in the right spot and helping out on the wall, especially in this series where we know we\u2019re playing a team that really likes to pinch down on you to try to make it hard to get pucks out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it comes to that, we just have to be more patiently defensive-wise, be in the right spot and just from there finding holes and making plays.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karlsson has nine points (three goals, six assists) in 15 playoff games. He was centering the Golden Knights\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-735868","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\/735868","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=735868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}