(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)

As the Golden Knights have gone along through the first five games, they’ve tried two different combinations of forward lines. At first, William Karlsson and Reilly Smith were matched up with captain Mark Stone on a line many expected would dominate. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as impressive as hoped.

Stone was then moved up to the top line with Jack Eichel, while Mitch Marner dropped down to play with Tomas Hertl and Pavel Dorofeyev. This left Brandon Saad as the new linemate for Smith and Karlsson. Through two and a half games as a permanent line, it hasn’t gone well for the trio.

They’ve yet to find the back of the net while on the ice together (Karlsson’s goals were both on special teams), they were out there for each of Boston’s first two goals in the 1st period on Thursday night, and the advanced analytics have them capturing just 31% of the expected goal share in their 24:42 of ice time together. And, to make matters worse, despite the group expected to be utilized a bit more defensively, they’ve posted these less-than-stellar numbers with a 64% offensive zone start percentage.

I think they are a little too far apart right now. They can use a little better support skating onto pucks, a little more direct game. -Cassidy

Cassidy said he had a quick meeting with the line to go over some film to illustrate it to the players.

The selling point to them is to be a little closer together, and things will open up for you as we go. They’re all smart players and they’re still sorting it out. They’re still going to be put in responsible situations. We trust them, and hopefully some offense comes to them. I’m sure it’ll happen. -Cassidy

The head coach also has a theory about why the success of that line may take a while before it materializes.

They’re all elite skaters. Everyone’s got their legs in the league because it’s early. So I think their advantage is yet to come because they’ll keep their legs where some of the younger guys fall off a little bit. -Cassidy

The trio is expected to remain together for tonight’s game, and as long as they keep winning, the line shuffling will stay to a minimum. The hope is that staying more connected will bring more success, because it’s going to be a while before the legs go for many opposing players.