(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)

Over the years, the Golden Knights have seen a number of shifts in identity in terms of play style. The inaugural team was all about speed, forechecking, and tenacity. The Cup team was a combination of stingy defense and balanced offensive puck possession. Last year’s team was a bit of both, but had an odd ingredient included: lack of physicality.

Despite being one of the physically largest teams in the NHL last season, the Golden Knights landed just short of 18 hits per game, by far the least they’ve had in any season in franchise history.

This summer, they’ve taken a step to bolster that number, at least a bit, in adding a player who led the league in hits in 2023-24, Jeremy Lauzon. The bruising 6’3” 225-pound 28-year-old landed an insane 383 hits in 79 games during his last full season, an average of 4.8 per game. The departing players, Nic Roy, Nic Hague, and Alex Pietrangelo combined for a total of 195 hits and played 68, 71, and 71 games respectively, or about 2.7 combined per game.

Without question, assuming Lauzon does indeed win the job in VGK’s starting lineup, the hit numbers will increase this season.

Where there is a question, though, does it matter?

Hits Per Game (Points Percentage)
2018-19 – 27.4 (.567)
2019-20 – 26.5 (.606)
2023-24 – 24.4 (.598)
2022-23 – 23.2 (.677)
2020-21 – 21.5 (.732)
2017-18 – 21.2 (.665)
2021-22 – 20.2 (.573)
2024-25 – 18.0 (.671)

The season the Golden Knights were laying the most wood was indeed their worst. However, that season is widely regarded to still be one of VGK’s best teams; they just had the season cut short by one of the worst calls in NHL history.
The Cup season falls right in the middle of the plot, while the year the team missed the playoffs leans a bit towards fewer hits. As a whole, though, the graph is essentially useless as there’s no real correlation.

What about if we break it down individually per game…

Wins: 22.33 hits per game
OTL: 24.00 hits per game
Loss: 24.11 hits per game

40 or more hits: 13-15-2 (.467)
30-39 hits: 49-32-11 (.592)
25-29 hits: 77-41-12 (.638)
20-24 hits: 80-43-18 (.631)
15-19 hits: 77-39-10 (.651)
14 or fewer hits: 66-28-6 (.690)

There’s no question, over the 619 regular season game history, the less the Golden Knights hit, the more successful they’ve been. It’s not by a wide margin, though.

Typically, teams that hit less have the puck more, which is certainly the plan for Vegas this season. But, they also seem to have put at least a bit of emphasis into hitting more by targeting Lauzon, and to a degree, Colton Sissons as well.

Physicality is a crucial element to the game of hockey, but it doesn’t show up by simply hitting people. Most would agree, last year’s Golden Knights team lacked some of the physicality necessary to win in the biggest moments. This year’s team is certain to have a slightly different flavor with Mitch Marner, Jeremy Lauzon, Colton Sissons, and Kaedan Korczak in the everyday lineup. Hopefully it’s the right combination.