The team isn't slated to skate today and rest is a good idea in the middle of a very busy chunk of the schedule which sees them play three games in four days this weekend.
Part of the grind of an NHL schedule is the mental grind. Parity has long been the NHL's goal and they've got it. The result is a team has to be mentally sharp to win and have be buttoned down in terms of details. That focus isn't easy to achieve and it takes a toll. From this perspective, Vegas did not look to have that edge in the two games against Minnesota. And that's going to happen from time to time during a regular season which basically sees teams playing every other night with a weekly back-to-back sprinkled in.
Lots gets made of the job Vegas management has done building an elite roster in a short amount of time. What sometimes gets lost is the excellent work the club has done drafting and signing free agent amateurs.
In Wednesday's loss to the Wild, Vegas used five players either drafted or signed as an amateur by the club. Dylan Coghlan, who scored his first NHL goal and picked up a hat trick all on the same night, was one of the free agent signings. Coghlan slipped through the NHL draft but Golden Knights head amateur scout Bobby Lowes and his staff had been watching him and invited him to development camp. He signed a contract at the end of camp and then went back to the WHL and had a monster season with the Tri-City Americans scoring 17 goals and 46 assists. Coghlan spent two seasons in the AHL before cracking the Golden Knights lineup this season.
The book on Coghlan is he's a mobile, puck moving defender with a great first pass and a bomb of a shot. Coghlan also has played with an edge at both the junior and AHL levels and eventually that will show itself in the NHL.
Goaltender Logan Thompson is another free agent signing. He came to development camp with the Golden Knights in 2017. He went back to junior for a year and then spent season playing Canadian university hockey before turning pro at the ECHL level.
Following a tremendous 2019-20 season with the South Carolina Stingrays in the ECHL, Thompson signed a contract with the Golden Knights and began this season with the AHL's Henderson Silver Knights.
