The Vegas Golden Knights are heading into the 2026-27 season with a familiar-looking core and a few obvious pressure points hanging over them.
They’re still chasing Stanley Cup No. 2 after coming up two games short, and the pieces around the roster haven’t been blown up. The top-six forwards are mostly intact, with Pavel Dorofeyev the notable departure, and the defense group is largely the same as well, aside from Kaedan Korczak moving on. That kind of continuity should help, especially with the Pacific Division not exactly surging ahead.
But this team also carries the usual Vegas reality: Kelly McCrimmon doesn’t tend to lock himself into long-term deals for aging players, and that matters even more when the roster is built around veterans who may want five-year commitments. So while the present still looks strong, there are real questions to answer once the season gets rolling.
The first one is simple enough: who replaces Dorofeyev’s shot volume?
Jack Eichel is the most obvious name. The Olympic gold medalist led the Golden Knights with 260 shots on goal last season and turned that into 27 goals. The wrinkle is that he only scored one power play goal, which leaves some of the burden elsewhere.
That means Vegas will need more from the rest of the lineup. Ivan Barbashev had 133 shots on goal, Mark Stone had 130, and Mitch Marner finished with 165.
The answer probably isn’t one player stepping in and taking over. It’s more likely to be a group effort if the Golden Knights want to keep the goals coming.
The second issue sits on the other side of the puck: can the defense give the goaltending enough cover?
Even with injuries and some uneven play, Vegas still finished with the league’s 12th-best team goals-against average at 2.95. Carter Hart and Akira Schmid helped keep things steady at different points, stealing games and helping push the Golden Knights to a Pacific Division title.
Now the blue line changes a bit. Korczak and Ben Hutton are out, and Parker Wotherspoon is in as an underrated two-way option. The question is whether that group can hold up well enough to keep another Stanley Cup Final-style run from turning into a problem again.
Then there’s the biggest unknown of all: how Ryan Craig handles a veteran room.
Vegas has leaned on experienced head coaches before, and every coach in franchise history before Craig already had head coaching experience. That changes now, with the former Henderson Silver Knights coach taking over behind the bench.
The challenge is obvious. This is an older team, and getting veterans to buy in and stay on track all season is no small job. If Craig can’t manage that dynamic, it could become a major issue for the Golden Knights’ future - and it could shorten the season fast.
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Golden Knights Close One Misfits Chapter As Holtz Faces Real Pressure
Brad Hunt has quietly closed the book on a long NHL career, one that included a place on the Golden Knights inaugural run to the Stanley Cup Final. For Vegas, it is a reminder of how quickly the early roster built around misfits and opportunists has aged out of the picture, with another familiar name now stepping away after 10 seasons in the league.
The present-day pressure, though, sits with Alexander Holtz. The forward has not matched the expectations that followed him to Vegas, and after two uneven seasons he is staring at a pivotal year that could shape whether he remains part of the plan. With the final season of his contract ahead, Holtz does not just need a bounce-back, he needs a convincing one. [Read more 🡒]
Golden Knights Keep Earning The Long Term Trust Other Teams Lost
Around the NHL, a wide swath of fans still seems to view the Pacific Division through a skeptical lens, with a recent Athletic survey of about 20,000 respondents putting five division teams near the top of the list of clubs they are least confident will win a Stanley Cup before 2036. The Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks were among the teams drawing that distrust, a reminder of how hard it is for a franchise to earn long-term belief in this league.
Vegas has managed to stay on the other side of that equation. The Golden Knights have built sustained competitiveness through a salary-cap strategy that has kept the roster balanced, and their front office continues to be a major reason they are viewed differently from so many of their division rivals. There are legitimate questions about an aging roster, but the organization has earned the benefit of the doubt in a way few teams can claim. [Read more 🡒]
Golden Knights Face A Franchise Question About Elite Goal Scoring
The Golden Knights have built their identity around balance, depth and a scoring load that gets spread across the roster, but the lack of a true 50-goal season still stands out as one of the franchises biggest offensive blanks. Since entering the league in 2017, Vegas has never had a player reach that benchmark, even as the club has consistently fielded teams good enough to stay in the playoff mix and make life difficult for opponents across the Western Conference.
Pavel Dorofeyevs departure to the New York Rangers only sharpens the conversation, since he previously held the teams single-season power play goals record. And with no current Golden Knights player having ever scored 50 in a season before, the question is less about whether Vegas can score than whether its carefully constructed approach will ever produce the kind of elite finisher that changes the shape of a season. [Read more 🡒]