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Golden Knights identity shows as Pacific race tightens

Originally posted on Dice City Sports | By Mark Hebert | Last updated Apr 6, 2026 8:05 AM ET

Golden Knights are not just climbing in Pacific race. They finally have an identity

A week ago, the Golden Knights were trying to stop the slide. Now they are one point out of first place and starting to look like a team with a real late-season shape.

Vegas sits at 86 points with five games left, one behind Edmonton and Anaheim at 87. No team in the Pacific has clinched a playoff spot yet, while Colorado, Dallas and Minnesota already have in the Central. That contrast says plenty about the division Vegas is navigating: open, unstable and still waiting for somebody to take it.

Pacific pressure, no cushion

The standings are tight enough to create urgency and messy enough to invite a move.

Edmonton still looks like the steadiest of the top three, even after the 5-1 loss to Vegas on Saturday. The Oilers are 7-3-0 in their last 10. Anaheim, however, has lost five straight and still sits in a playoff spot with a minus-14 goal differential.

That is the opening.

Vegas is third, but only by one point. At the same time, the Golden Knights are not far enough clear to relax. Los Angeles is at 81, five back, and San Jose is at 79. So this is not just a sprint upward. It is also a fight to stay out of the crowd.

Vegas knows how it wants to play

The biggest change is not just in the standings. It is in the way the Golden Knights are talking about themselves.

Since John Tortorella took over, the message has been simple. He wants Vegas to play fast. He wants it to play north. Most of all, he wants the team setting the pace instead of reacting to it.

After the win in Edmonton, Tortorella said the point was not to measure his group against the Oilers. It was to see whether the Golden Knights could stay true to the identity they had shown in the previous two games.

“I think we’re consistently trying to play fast, certainly playing north,” he said. “Some hiccups here and there, but I thought we stayed within ourselves and kept on playing.”

He put it even more plainly when he described the plan against Edmonton.

“One of the biggest points was we wanted to try to play at our pace, not wait to see what the pace was going to be of the game,” he said. “We wanted to try to set the tempo.”

That matters more than any one result. Teams can get hot for a week. The harder part is finding a style that holds up under pressure. Against Vancouver and Calgary, Vegas looked refreshed. Against Edmonton, it looked more convincing.

this win definitely felt good

Image | Source: Dice City Sports
pic.twitter.com/LnFXfgmzE6
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) April 5, 2026

The room is saying the same thing

The strongest sign that the shift is real is that the players sound like their coach.

Colton Sissons said the group is buying into “just playing fast hockey, checking, moving our feet and just playing teams really tight and aggressively.” He also said Vegas is “building our confidence back and our swag.”

Jeremy Lauzon echoed the same idea in simpler terms.

“His message is to play fast,” Lauzon said. “To really not think, really, and just let the hockey happen and put a lot of pressure on them.”

There is another detail in the Edmonton win that supports that. The Golden Knights did not need one line to carry them. Brett Howden scored. Sissons scored. Lauzon scored his first as a Golden Knight. Rasmus Andersson scored. Jack Eichel had three assists, but the attack spread across the lineup.

Tortorella noticed that too.

“There’s some goals scored throughout the lineup,” he said. “It’s just not the top guys. So that’s a good sign.”

What this race is now

The Golden Knights are improving, but they are not finished.

Lauzon gave the right caution after the Oilers game. He said many of the goals Vegas still gives up come from “mistakes we make,” and that if the Golden Knights clean up those errors, “we’re going to be hard to beat.”

That is the honest read. Vegas looks faster, sharper and more direct than it did before the coaching change. It also still has moments where a bad turnover or missed read can put it in trouble. But now the structure is easier to see, and that alone is progress.

For Vegas, this is no longer just about hanging on. The Ducks are slipping. The Oilers are still sturdy, but no longer running. The Kings remain alive, but they are chasing. And the Golden Knights, after three straight wins under Tortorella, have pushed themselves back into the real center of the division race.

Five games remain. One point separates Vegas from the top.

In a Pacific Division where nobody has clinched and nothing has settled, the Golden Knights finally look like a team pointed somewhere.

Up Next

The Golden Knights continue the road trip Tuesday night in Vancouver, with puck drop set for 7 p.m. PT at Rogers Arena.

Vegas comes in at 35-26-16 and has won three straight, while the Canucks are 22-46-8 and just 2-8-0 in their last 10. The Golden Knights have also taken the first two meetings in the season series, winning 5-2 on Feb. 4 and 4-2 on March 30.

On paper, this is another game Vegas should handle. Still, with only five games left and the Pacific race packed tight, the Golden Knights do not have much room to waste one.