(Photo Credit: Rob Schneidmiller, Ice Time Southwest)

This year’s Training Camp for the Golden Knights is not one of the more competitive ones we’ve seen over the past eight seasons. Pretty much the entire starting lineup, including lines and pairs, is set, which means position battles are few and far between, if they even exist at all.

For Bruce Cassidy, though, that does not mean the players further down the organizational depth chart have nothing to play for.

There are guys who want to earn more minutes, i.e, Petro’s minutes. Then there are guys who are trying to take someone’s job or trying to earn a contract. Then there are guys who want to be the first call-up who are younger. -Bruce Cassidy

The fight for extra minutes likely will not be settled during camp, but players looking to earn contracts or prove they are ready if needed are plentiful. There’s a large collection of players in that pool, and Cassidy called out a few by name.

I’ll use Rookie Camp as an example. (Kai) Uchacz had a real good camp, so he’s gotta go and open our eyes because we don’t know the player that well. (Braeden) Bowman. They are both first-year guys last year that made some progress. I’m using them as an example. There’s others, (Jakub) Brabenec has obviously been around a little longer. Is he going to push through and say you know what if we lose a center I can come in and do it. (Matyas) Sapovaliv too. -Cassidy

It’s tough on those players because of how settled VGK’s roster currently sits.

That’s what those guys have in front of them and that’s the reality when you have that much strength in your lineup. They have to kind of be positive about that. They can’t say ‘Oh well, I have no chance because I’ve got to beat out Mitch Marner for a job.’ They have to look at it like ‘Okay, I’m going to show them I can play in the league if a door opens for me.’ That’s a challenge for young guys because it’s later. It’s not tomorrow. Those guys have to embrace that. On our team, we have world-class players ahead of them, and they have to show that they are next. -Cassidy

Up front, the aforementioned Uchacz, Bowman, Brabenec, and Sapovaliv join a few older players such as Tanner Laczynski, Cole Reinhardt, Cole Schwindt, Jonas Rondbjerg, Raphael Lavoie, and even Alex Holtz as well as fellow youngsters Jakub Demek and Jackson Hallum. One defense, the younger group consists of Christoffer Sedoff, Viliam Kmec, and Lukas Cormier, while the older group has Dylan Coghlan and Jaycob Megna.

One or two of the players listed may make the 23-man roster when camp breaks in a few weeks, but they all have the opportunity to make an impact on Cassidy while he still has eyes on them. As great as it is to head into a season with a clear picture of the roster, it typically comes with limited depth, which is the case for this year’s team. So, VGK could use a few of them to take some serious strides forward and bolster the depth of the roster.