Daily Faceoff Show: Pete DeBoer knows Vegas goaltending is an issue

The Vegas Golden Knights have had a pretty disastrous season, especially by their standards. They have a ton of injuries to deal with, currently find themselves 10th in the Western Conference in points percentage, and have struggled to get stops in net with Robin Lehner sidelined.

Where do the Golden Knights go from here? Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk talk about it on Wednesday’s Daily Faceoff show.

Frank Seravalli: “You look at their losses, now five in a row, and I can’t help but say, ‘What would their goaltending look like had you not traded away the reigning Vezina Trophy winner for absolutely nothing last summer?’ It’s almost a karmic reaction, if that’s such a thing, in that it was handled poorly.

"They look back and probably don’t look good in terms of how they treated Marc-Andre Fleury on the way out, and they rolled the dice going with Robin Lehner this season to handle the workload. Go back to our season preview, that was one of the questions that I asked. Can Robin Lehner handle a full season’s worth of workload given the state of his game and his body? It’s not really that he can’t stop the puck when he’s in net, he can, it’s just that injuries pop up left and right, and he also tends to be one of the heaviest goalies in the National Hockey League.

"So, this has come back to bite the Vegas Golden Knights in a big way, at a time when they were supposed to be cruising along. And you could say there are significant injuries to the Vegas Golden Knights. Almost $40 million on the shelf. Reilly Smith. Mark Stone. Go down the list of players. Alec Martinez on the back end. But they should be in a better spot than they are now. They shouldn’t be trailing the Vancouver Canucks in points percentage. Given where Vancouver was, their season looked over in November. This is a team that has never missed the Stanley Cup playoffs. They’re skating on an edict to win the Stanley Cup in five years.

"The pressure is real. And it’s ratcheted up on Pete DeBoer, their coach, it’s ratcheted up on Kelly McCrimmon, their general manager, and now they’re in a spot where, ‘What do they do?’ Do you go out and trade for a goaltender? How does that work moving forward given that Robin Lehner has a number of years left on his deal?”

Tyler Yaremchuk: “Yeah, it’s going to be really interesting to see, but you’re right. Looking back on the way things shook down in the summer, you have to imagine that if Kelly McCrimmon could get a do over, he’d probably handle things a little bit differently.

"And the other thing, too, is the acquisition of Jack Eichel. His arrival into the lineup was supposed to be that big spark, that big sort of saving grace for the Golden Knights, but they’ve dropped 10 of 14 since he’s come in and join them.

Frank Seravalli: “By the way, this is happening on a night where Marc-Andre Fleury is absolutely ridiculous against the Boston Bruins, with 46 saves on 48 shots.

"You look at the Chicago Blackhawks and their year, how many wins do they have at this point? 22? And Marc-Andre Fleury has 19 of them when he’s in net? It speaks for itself.”

You can watch the full episode here…