Vegas Golden Knights

Pacific Division, Western Conference · 21 reports in the 2023-24 edition.

This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read, written from that season alone. Read the 2026-27 club page →

The club

2022-23 · 82 games · 236 for, 213 against

How it played

Shot attempts share, five-on-five: 48.1% 22nd of 32
Expected goals share, five-on-five: 51.0% 15th of 32
Power play expected goals per sixty: 8.73 2nd of 32
Penalty kill expected goals allowed per sixty: 5.95 1st of 32

Where the record lies

Finishing goals scored above what the chances were worth: +9.5 8th of 32
Goaltending goals prevented beyond what the chances allowed were worth: +9.7 9th of 32

Vegas Golden Knights scored 9.5 more goals than their chances were worth and got 9.7 more saves than the chances they faced warranted — 19 goals of the record that the underlying play does not explain. Both halves regress.

Roster shape

Points-weighted, so these are the ages and origins of the production rather than of the sweaters.

Average age: 28.7; weighted by points
From 33 and up: 11.0%; of skater points
From under 26: 15.5%; of skater points
Homegrown: 5.7%; drafted by this club
Continuity: 63.6%; of last season's five-on-five minutes

The read

the numbers, and the eye

The Stanley Cup, from the twenty-second-best shot-attempt share in the league, ninth on the power play and eighth on the kill.

Who this names 4 of 21 on the roster · 19% of their five-on-five minutes details

Both columns above are searched, and a name counts on the same terms the page links it: in full always, by surname only when one man in the edition wears it. Nothing here says who ought to be named — only who was, so the weighting can be seen rather than guessed at.

Not named here: Michael Amadio, Ivan Barbashev, William Carrier, Paul Cotter, Nicolas Hague, Brett Howden, Ben Hutton, William Karlsson, Keegan Kolesar, Alec Martinez, Alex Pietrangelo, Nicolas Roy, Chandler Stephenson, Mark Stone, Shea Theodore, Logan Thompson, Zach Whitecloud.

What the Quant Says

51-22-9, 111 points, 4th in the league and first in the Pacific.

272 goals for, 14th. 229 against, 11th. Twenty-second in shot-attempt share, 15th in chance share, 17th at creating chances at even strength, 12th at suppressing them, 9th on the power play and 14th on the penalty kill.

At five-on-five: 185 goals scored against 175.5 expected, and 159 conceded against 168.7. The finishing was 8th at plus-9.5 and the goaltending 9th at plus-9.7.

Vegas beat Winnipeg in five, Edmonton in six, Dallas in six and Florida in five, and won the Stanley Cup.

Jonathan Marchessault won the Conn Smythe Trophy. Adin Hill was the club's fourth goaltender of the season and played every game of the Final. Brayden McNabb played 82 games without a single burst above 20 miles an hour. Jack Eichel recorded 4.6 of them a game.

Reilly Smith, Phil Kessel, Laurent Brossoit and Jonathan Quick do not return.

This is the most ordinary set of underlying numbers any Stanley Cup winner in this project has posted, and there is nothing wrong with them: eighth and ninth in the two percentages, eighth on both special teams, twenty-second in attempts. What the record shows is a club that took very few penalties, gave up worse chances than it took, and had four goaltenders good enough to win with. The champions of 2023 are the best argument in this book against reading a season's process as a prediction of its ending.

What the Scout Says

The Stanley Cup, a Conn Smythe from an undrafted thirty-two-year-old, and a fourth-choice goaltender who won the Final.

Vegas was 22nd in shot-attempt share and 15th in chance share, 9th on the power play over the fewest power-play minutes in the league, and 8th on the penalty kill over the fewest shorthanded minutes in it. Its finishing was 8th and its goaltending 9th.

Nothing here is extreme and the club won everything. The roster is old, disciplined, deep in the middle, and coached to give up nothing cheap, and that combination beat four better-looking teams in a row.

Who this names 8 of 12 forwards · 71% of their five-on-five minutes details

Not named here: Paul Cotter, Brett Howden, Keegan Kolesar, Nicolas Roy.

What the Quant Says

272 goals, 14th in the league.

Vegas created 2.646 expected goals per 60 at even strength, 17th, and took 48.1 per cent of the shot attempts at five-on-five, 22nd, and 51 per cent of the expected goals, 15th. The gap between those two is the club in one line: it does not have the puck as often as its opponents and the chances it gives up are worse than the ones it takes.

At five-on-five it scored 185 goals against an expectation of 175.5 — a surplus of 9.5, 8th in the league.

Jack Eichel had 27 goals and 66 points in 67 games, Chandler Stephenson 49 assists and 65 points, Jonathan Marchessault 28 and 57, Alex Pietrangelo 54 points from the blue line, William Karlsson 14 and 53 with 10 penalty minutes in 82 games, Ivan Barbashev 16 and 45 and Mark Stone 38 points in 43 games.

Reilly Smith has gone to Pittsburgh and Phil Kessel is unsigned.

What the Scout Says

Undrafted, five foot nine, thirty-two years old, and the Conn Smythe.

Jonathan Marchessault is 5-9 and 185 and undrafted, with 418 points in 556 games across four organisations, and he scored 28 goals at 32 with 29 per cent of his attempts from beyond 40 feet. He played for three clubs before he was 26, was claimed in an expansion draft, and won the Conn Smythe at 32. There is no better story in this book.

Jack Eichel is 6-2 and 208 and recorded 4.6 bursts above 20 miles an hour a game, the 99th percentile, with a 23.8 mph top speed at the 98th. He had 66 points in 67 games and 6 penalty minutes, and his career minus-40 belongs entirely to six seasons in Buffalo.

Chandler Stephenson is 6-0 and 201 and had 49 assists at the 98th percentile of bursts and the 7th percentile of shot speed. He does one thing at an elite level and cannot shoot at all, and the club has built a first line around the one thing.

William Karlsson has 11 career shorthanded goals and took 10 penalty minutes in 82 games. Mark Stone held the 94th percentile of chance share in 43 games at the 3rd percentile of top speed — the clearest case in this chapter of a player whose value the tracking cannot see.

William Carrier shoots from a 14-foot median and Michael Amadio scored 16 goals on 99 shots in 12 minutes a night.

Who this names 6 of 7 defencemen · 94% of their five-on-five minutes details

Not named here: Ben Hutton.

What the Quant Says

Vegas allowed 2.576 expected goals per 60 at even strength, 12th in the league, and conceded 229 goals, 11th.

At five-on-five it conceded 159 goals against an expectation of 168.7, and the club's goaltending came in 9.7 goals better than the chances it faced, 9th in the league.

Alex Pietrangelo played 73 games at 23:59 with 54 points and covered 3.32 miles a game at 33, the 94th percentile, taking 117 shots from beyond 40 feet for 5 goals.

Brayden McNabb played all 82 games and recorded no bursts above 20 miles an hour in any of them — a 19.7 mph top speed, the slowest in this book — at the 70th percentile of chance share.

Alec Martinez has a 100.3 mph shot and took 52 shots from the point without scoring. Nicolas Hague is 6-6 and 245 pounds with a 99.1 mph shot and no goals from the point. Shea Theodore had 33 assists in 55 games. Zach Whitecloud is undrafted with a career plus-46 in 186 games.

What the Scout Says

Eighty-two games and not one burst above twenty miles an hour.

Brayden McNabb is 6-4 and 215 and recorded a 19.7 mph top speed — the slowest in this book — with zero bursts above 20 miles an hour in 82 games, and held the 70th percentile of chance share out of the 97th percentile of offensive-zone ice time. He has a career plus-98 in 658 games with 133 points, and the book has no column for whatever it is he does.

Alex Pietrangelo is 6-3 and 215 with 952 games, 571 points and two Stanley Cups on two clubs, and covered 3.32 miles a game at 33 — the 94th percentile — from the 14th percentile of top speed. He took 117 shots from beyond 40 feet and scored 5.

Alec Martinez is 36 with three Stanley Cups, a 100.3 mph shot and 52 point shots that produced nothing. Nicolas Hague is 6-6 and 245 pounds with a 99.1 mph shot and no goals from the point at all. Three defencemen on one roster with shots above 99 miles an hour and six goals between them from beyond 40 feet.

Shea Theodore had 33 assists in 55 games — a 60-point rate, and the 55 is the file. Zach Whitecloud is undrafted with a career plus-46 in 186 games at the 14th percentile of zone starts.

Who this names 2 of 2 goaltenders details

What the Quant Says

The club's goaltending came in 9.7 goals better than the chances it faced, 9th in the league.

Logan Thompson went 21-13-3 with a .9152 and a 2.65 in 37 games, facing 1,132 shots with 2 shutouts. He is undrafted, 6-4, right-handed — one of four right-handed goaltenders in this book — and his career line across 57 games is a .9149.

Adin Hill went 16-7-1 with a .9140 and a 2.50 in 27 games, facing 721. He is 6-4 and 222, has a career .9098 across 101 games, and then played every game of the Stanley Cup Final.

Laurent Brossoit played 11 games and has gone to Winnipeg, and Jonathan Quick 10 and has gone to the Rangers.

Four goaltenders played for this club in the regular season and the fourth-choice one won the Cup. There is no lesson in that a projection can use, and it is the single most honest thing this book can say about goaltending.

What the Scout Says

Four goaltenders in one season, and the fourth one won the Cup.

Adin Hill is 6-4 and 222 and went 16-7-1 with a .9140 in 27 regular-season games, on a career .9098 across 101. He was the third or fourth choice here in October and started every game of the Stanley Cup Final in June. Nothing in the record before it says he would.

Logan Thompson is 6-4 and 207, undrafted and right-handed — one of four right-handed goaltenders in this book — and went 21-13-3 with a .9152 in 37 games, on a career .9149 across 57. That figure is level with Andrei Vasilevskiy's last season, from a man nobody drafted.

Laurent Brossoit has gone to Winnipeg and Jonathan Quick to the Rangers.

Vegas enters the season with two goaltenders who have 158 NHL games between them, both above .914 last year, and a Stanley Cup that neither of them was expected to be near. That is either the best goaltending situation in the league or the least predictable, and this book cannot tell you which.

Who this names 9 men details

The data does not say who takes these minutes, so there is no denominator to hold this against — a count of names is all it can honestly be. Both columns above are searched, and a name counts on the same terms the page links it.

What the Quant Says

8th in the league at 6.780 expected goals against per 60, over 4:04 a night — the fewest shorthanded minutes of any club in the league.

William Karlsson scored 2 shorthanded goals, Mark Stone 2 and Alec Martinez 1.

William Karlsson has 11 career shorthanded goals in 615 games, the most on the roster and by rate one of the larger figures in this book. Mark Stone has 7 in 584, Chandler Stephenson 6 in 420, Ivan Barbashev 5 in 433, Alec Martinez 2 in 763 and Zach Whitecloud 1 in 186.

D · Vegas Golden Knights

Undrafted, a career plus-46 in 186 games, and the fourteenth percentile of zone starts.

How they were used

2022-23 · 82 games

Measured from shift charts at five-on-five, not projected. Units are built from the strongest partnership outward and ordered by how much they were used; the percentage is the share of the first player’s five-on-five ice time spent alongside each linemate. A low number means the club never settled on a combination. Players who have gone are marked — either to another club, or off an NHL roster altogether, which covers retirement and an unsigned summer alike.