The Vegas Golden Knights suffered a season-ending 2-1 loss to the Dallas Stars in Game 7 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy shared the staggering number of players who had surgery this season, which was nine.
“Nine guys. Your roster is only 23, so nine players,” Bruce Cassidy said, via Ryan S. Clark of ESPN. “Two of them internal surgeries. You never know how those are going to play out. Some other ones were a little more defined. But I give our guys a lot of credit.”
The Golden Knights took a 2-0 lead in this series with two road wins over the Stars, then lost three straight, before forcing a Game 7 with a win in Game 6. It was a hard-fought series between two teams who believed they had legitimate chances at a Stanley Cup.
After winning the Stanley Cup last year, the Golden Knights brought back 20 players this year, but faced questions heading into the playoffs, mainly surrounding how everyone would perform when healthy. One of those players was Mark Stone, who went on LTIR, providing Vegas the chance to add players at the deadline with his cap hit not accounted for.
The Golden Knights took advantage of hat, adding players like Tomas Hertl, Anthony Mantha and Noah Hanifin ahead of the NHL Trade Deadline. Vegas was all in to repeat, but fell short against one of the cup favorites.
As far as the injuries go, key players like Shea theodore, Mark Stone, among others like Adin Hill missed significant time. Tomas Hertl was recovering from a knee procedure whenn he was acquired as well.
“Some of those surgeries are obviously correcting a problem, but it takes us a while to get back up to speed,” Cassidy said, via Clark. “That would be the unfortunate part. They came and did get healthy enough for the playoffs. That was the positive, and now you are trying to get a team up to speed in a hurry. … I didn't do a good enough job of that, but that's a lot of surgeries in one year for guys to overcome, and it defines your game.”
How did the Golden Knights lose their 2-0 series lead?
After taking a 2-0 series lead, Alex Pietrangelo said that the Stars adjusted to what the Golden Knights were doing, and they had trouble responding to those adjustments.
“Up 2-0, it would've been nice to find a way to win two of those three games,” Alex Pietrangelo said, via Clark. “They made some adjustments that I don't think we adjusted well enough right away. That's on us as players to find a way when we're up 2-0 to get the job done.”
The Golden Knights will have some interesting decisions ahead of them this summer, but they should go into next season as one of the contenders once again.
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