(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)

For the first time in franchise history last season, the Golden Knights’ power play was a legitimate weapon. The VGK PP converted on 53 of their 187 opportunities for a staggering 28.3%. That number was more than 6% better than any previous Vegas team in the past, and it ranked 2nd in the entire NHL, the first time VGK have ever been in the Top 5.

There was a slight shift in philosophy from the Golden Knights in regards to deployment on the power play in 2024-25 compared to years past, which had a major impact on the success rate. For the first time in the Bruce Cassidy era, and for the most part the only time in VGK history, last year’s team went with a truly unbalanced pair of power play units.

Jack Eichel was on the ice for 72% of VGK’s total power play time in the regular season, and that number jumped to 83% in the playoffs. In other words, on every two-minute power play, Eichel was on the ice for 1:27 in the regular season and a whopping 1:40 in the playoffs. The rest of the top unit didn’t lag too far behind.

Here are the regular season numbers.

PP TOIPP TOI %On Ice PP GoalsOn Ice PP Goals %

Jack Eichel213:1371.8%4788.7%

Tomas Hertl197:0166.3%4686.8%

Shea Theodore178:0459.9%3260.4%

Pavel Dorofeyev177:1659.7%3464.2%

Mark Stone173:0758.3%4177.4%

Noah Hanifin104:4535.3%1935.8%

Nicolas Roy84:1928.4%917.0%

Victor Olofsson77:4926.2%1528.3%

William Karlsson75:1225.3%815.1%

Ivan Barbashev64:3921.8%59.4%

Alex Pietrangelo63:3921.5%35.7%

Alexander Holtz28:309.6%23.8%

Reilly Smith16:435.6%23.8%

Brett Howden8:573.0%00.0%

Brandon Saad6:012.0%11.9%

And the postseason numbers.

PP TOIPP TOI %On Ice PP GoalsOn Ice PP Goals %

Jack Eichel43:3083.4%787.5%

Tomas Hertl38:0473.0%562.5%

Shea Theodore34:2866.1%787.5%

Pavel Dorofeyev22:2242.9%225.0%

Mark Stone36:0169.1%675.0%

Noah Hanifin14:4934.2%112.5%

Nicolas Roy12:4224.4%225.0%

Victor Olofsson17:3133.6%450.0%

William Karlsson11:4622.6%225.0%

Ivan Barbashev12:4324.4%112.5%

Alex Pietrangelo4:288.6%112.5%

Alexander Holtz0:000.0%00.0%

Reilly Smith7:4314.8%112.5%

Brett Howden0:491.6%112.5%

Brandon Saad0:571.8%00.0%

The top unit of Eichel, Hertl, Stone, Theodore, and Dorofeyev was essentially given 80 seconds of the 120 before they were changed for the second unit. The second unit rarely started the power play on the ice, and even when the second unit was given a chance, oftentimes Eichel would stay out there with them.

In the regular season, the Golden Knights scored a total of four (yes, four) power play goals when neither Eichel nor Hertl was on the ice. In 183 minutes with both Eichel and Hertl, VGK potted a whopping 44 power play goals, or 14.39 per 60 minutes. There were 70:16 without either of them, and the number dipped to 3.42 goals per 60 minutes.

The reason why this is significant moving forward is that the deployment between first and second units is unlikely to change this season. If anything, it might get even more lopsided. That means, with Mitch Marner coming in, someone will be relegated to the second power play unit, which, for all intents and purposes, means not really even on the power play at all.

The two options are Pavel Dorofeyev and Shea Theodore. Pavel scored 13 of his 35 goals on the PP while Theodore notched 19 of his 57 points. It probably won’t impact the team all that much, but someone’s numbers are going to take a massive hit because of Marner’s presence on special teams.

The idea that whoever comes off the top unit will still get plenty of opportunity on the second unit is nice in theory, but in reality, the second unit in the current VGK setup is really just purgatory as the clock ticks back to 5-on-5. Either a player is one of the five on the first unit and in line for big offensive numbers, or they aren’t, and it’ll be challenging to get to 50 points, no matter how good the player is.