After announcing that defenseman Zach Whitecloud had surgery for an upper-body issue, the Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights will begin their season without a key element of their physical style.
Whitecloud is out week-to-week because of the procedure and will miss significant time due to injury for the third consecutive season since his emergence during the abridged 2020-21 campaign.
The right-handed shot’s chemistry with fellow big body Nic Hague was critical to Vegas’s successful playoff run earlier this year; the duo logged over 18 minutes per game, giving coach Bruce Cassidy the chance to rest the aging duo of Alec Martinez, 36, and Alex Pietrangelo, 33, in time for critical late-game stretches.
Whitecloud and Hague were among the team’s leaders in postseason rating (their combined +27 was the highest of the team’s three pairs), and Vegas has mere days to cope with the former’s injury before their regular-season opener against the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday.
Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon will keep an eye on Whitecloud’s health and performance throughout the season after the blueliner missed over 20 games while being significantly out-chanced for the first time in his career in 2022-23.
Despite his postseason heroics, the first season of Whitecloud’s six-year, $16.5-million contract extension did not go to plan and the organization is notorious for its ruthlessness; Vegas traded original stars Reilly Smith and Marc-Andre Fleury in cap-saving measures over the past two offseasons.
Brayden Pachal, a veteran of just 12 NHL games, is the team's only spare right-handed defenseman under contract, though tenured lefty Ben Hutton is also available. Regardless of who partners with Hague, Cassidy can still deploy the battle-tested top four of Martinez, Pietrangelo, Brayden McNabb and Shea Theodore.
To replicate their Stanley Cup triumph or 111-point Pacific Division-winning regular season, the Golden Knights must topple Seattle, the new-look Los Angeles Kings and the high-powered offense of the Edmonton Oilers. Their short offseason and injuries like Whitecloud’s could conspire against them.
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