What GM Kelly McCrimmon thinks about Golden Knights’ season

For wide manager Kelly McCrimmon, the Golden Knights’ archetypal 32 games tin beryllium divided into 2 seasons.

There’s the archetypal 1 that was impacted by injuries, erstwhile the Knights surpassed McCrimmon’s anticipation of being astatine .500 by the extremity of November and were 3 games over.

“That for maine was the endurance information of our season,” helium said.

Starting with a 3-2 triumph implicit Calgary connected Dec. 5, erstwhile the Knights’ apical six forwards were successful the lineup for the archetypal clip since Game 2, it’s been much similar what McCrimmon expected each along.

The Knights (20-12, 40 points) deed the NHL’s vacation interruption tied for archetypal spot successful the Pacific Division with Anaheim and percent points down Minnesota for the apical spot successful the Western Conference.

With 50 games remaining, McCrimmon hopes the worst is down the Knights.

“There’s ever a antithetic acceptable of circumstances and antithetic things that you’re dealing with. This play it was injuries,” McCrimmon said. “That was what we had to navigate, and I thought we did it well.

“I felt arsenic we went done it that we’d beryllium amended for it erstwhile we came retired of it. And I judge that we are.”

The Knights have utilized 33 players, 2 disconnected the squad record, and pb the league with 174 man-games mislaid to injury/COVID-19 protocol, according to NHLInjuryViz.

In bid to stay wrong earshot of the part leaders, they leaned connected goaltender Robin Lehner to support them successful games and handed accrued roles to blossoming defenseman Nic Hague and guardant Nicolas Roy. The adversity besides opened the doorway for younger players to gain the spot of the coaching staff.

Jonas Rondbjerg, Jake Leschyshyn and Paul Cotter debuted and made affirmative impressions astatine forward, portion Daniil Miromanov continued to ascent the organization’s extent illustration connected defense.

Those evaluations could travel successful useful erstwhile injured halfway Jack Eichel is acceptable to rejoin the squad and the Knights person to acceptable successful his $10 cardinal wage headdress hit.

“We’ve been (salary cap) compliant each crippled we’ve ever played, and we’ll proceed to beryllium arsenic we determination forward,” McCrimmon said. “What precisely that looks like, however precisely we get there, those are each things that we enactment astatine internally, and we’ll support it that way.”

Eichel is six weeks retired from having artificial disk replacement country successful his cervix and continues to rehab successful Charlotte, North Carolina. A video of him skating leaked 3 weeks ago, and Eichel is cleared to bash value grooming arsenic good arsenic different activities, according to McCrimmon.

The Knights volition conscionable with Eichel and his aesculapian squad successful January, aft which helium is expected to question to Las Vegas to proceed his rehab nether the team’s supervision.

McCrimmon cautioned that portion Eichel could articulation the squad connected a full-time ground for practices and off-ice training, determination is nary timetable for erstwhile helium volition beryllium cleared for interaction by his surgeon and squad aesculapian staff.

“I deliberation what volition hap if I was to guess, he’s going to look much acceptable erstwhile helium hits the crystal with america the archetypal clip than helium astir apt is due to the fact that it’s the interaction portion that’s going to instrumentality the time,” McCrimmon said. “There’s a batch much to it than conscionable the quality to skate, to bid and signifier successful a noncontact sweater. It’s going to beryllium the past portion of it that apt is the hardest to specify and whitethorn instrumentality the astir time.”

The Knights were scheduled to play Thursday against Los Angeles, but that crippled was postponed erstwhile the NHL and NHL Players’ Association agreed to commencement the vacation interruption early due to the fact that of COVID-related postponements.

With 50 games postponed connected the schedule, McCrimmon expects galore of them to beryllium made up successful February present that the league volition not enactment successful the 2022 Winter Olympics. Every squad submitted disposable arena dates to the NHL for scheduling successful February, though McCrimmon added helium didn’t person an denotation of what the Knights’ revised docket mightiness look like.

The Knights are scheduled to instrumentality from the interruption Monday against Colorado astatine T-Mobile Arena. There person been whispers that the intermission could beryllium extended to Jan. 1, though thing has been confirmed.

McCrimmon is hopeful the Knights don’t person further affirmative COVID tests this week and docket volition resume arsenic planned.

“The vacation play is simply a large clip for radical to ticker hockey and your players get successful a rhythm,” McCrimmon said. “These decisions are ne'er astir 1 team. They’re based connected the collective. The NHL felt that dropping disconnected a mates of days of the docket heading into the Christmas interruption mightiness beryllium the close mode to grip it. We respect that.”

Contact David Schoen astatine dschoen@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ connected Twitter.