(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)
The Golden Knights blue line is going to look a lot different this season than it has for quite a while. Alex Pietrangelo is expected to miss the entire 2025-26 season, and Nic Hague was traded to the Nashville Predators last night.
Pietrangelo has appeared in 329 of Vegas’ 384 regular season games over the past four seasons, and Hague has played in 326. There have only been five games since the start of the 2020-21 season in which VGK have been without both Pietrangelo and Hague.
Amazingly, though, the Golden Knights haven’t missed a beat when they’ve been without Pietrangelo or Hague, or both.
RecordPoints PercentageGoals Per GameGoals Against Per Game
Overall229-118-37.6453.272.73
w/ Both163-87-26.6383.212.72
w/o Pietrangelo38-14-3.7183.452.71
w/o Hague31-18-9.6123.362.76
w/o Both3-1-1.7003.002.40
Despite playing in the #1 defenseman role for his entire career in Vegas, the Golden Knights have a stellar .718 points percentage without Alex Pietrangelo. The numbers dip a bit without Hague, but not significantly enough to be concerned about.
In the playoffs, Vegas have only been without Pietrangelo twice, once for a suspension and once for an illness, both against Edmonton. They lost the game this past postseason and won in 2023. They were without Hague for nearly the entire Dallas series in 2024 as he was injured in Game 1. VGK went on to lose that series in seven games. Hague was a healthy scratch during portions of the 2021 playoff run as well. They went 5-5 with him in the lineup 5-4 without him.
The trade with Nashville brought Jeremy Lauzon, who may slot in on the 3rd pair in Hague’s absence, and free agency could bring more additions to the Vegas blue line before Opening Night 2025.
Defense will be one of the biggest question marks for the Golden Knights as they head into the 2025-26 season. On paper, the defense corps will certainly look worse than it has since Pietrangelo arrived, but the numbers indicate the issues may not be as deep-seated as they appear.
