(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)
This season, the Golden Knights are used to playing tight games. 19 of their 31 games have ended with a one-goal margin, including a whopping 13 that have extended beyond regulation.
On the recent road trip, they played three straight overtime games and overcame a 3rd period deficit to notch a one-goal win over the Blue Jackets to close it out. Overall, six of the last seven games have been one-goal games in which VGK have posted a nearly perfect 6-0-1 record.
Bruce Cassidy believes one of the reasons for this has been his commitment to rolling his lines.
Someone asked me what the team looks like when we’re at our best and it’s when our minutes are evenly distributed. You’ve got to trust the (depth) players, otherwise, you are chasing matchups the whole game, which is tough in five straight games on the road. -Bruce Cassidy
When he says evenly distributed, he doesn’t mean equal playing time for all. Like everyone, he knows what players like Jack Eichel, Mark Stone, and Mitch Marner should be on the ice a lot more than players in the bottom-six. However, keeping his top players fresh is crucial to the team’s overall success.
On the road trip, the leader in 5-on-5 playing time for the forwards was Ivan Barbashev with 74:37, or about 15 minutes a game. Eichel’s total was nearly the same. The next seven forwards all fell between 65 and 70 minutes, or 13 to 14 minutes per game. Finally, each member of the rotated 4th line landed at around 10 minutes per game.
One of the challenges for the Golden Knights, though, has been sticking to this type of distribution.
I thought we did do that, and we got better contributions, so maybe that’s a lesson to do it at home as well. -Cassidy
It’s a good item on the stat sheet to keep an eye on moving forward, especially with a few measuring stick games against Colorado and Edmonton coming up. It becomes even more important once the playoffs roll around too, but we’ll worry about that later.
