Midsummer Musings on a Variety of Golden Knights Topics

The offseason has been unusually slow this time around. The 2025 NHL Draft, the first decentralized draft, wasn’t received very well, and most top free agents signed back with their original teams. To say the least, it’s been a lackluster offseason with few newsworthy events going on around the NHL.

With August more than halfway through, let’s do some midsummer musings on a variety of Vegas Golden Knights topics, from highlighting a handful of prospects to the backup goaltending situation. Let’s dive into it.

Golden Knights Prospects To Keep Tabs On

Trevor Connelly

Trevor Connelly has had his ups and downs throughout his career, even before getting drafted, but now seems to finally be settling in. Last season, he showed flashes with Providence College, but managed only 13 points in 23 games.

Connelly played six games in the American Hockey League (AHL) to end the season and had four points in six games with the Henderson Silver Knights. There’s no doubt Connelly has the highest upside (by a wide margin, too) of Golden Knights prospects, but this next season in the AHL will be a good determination of where his development is.

Lukas Cormier

Defenseman Lukas Cormier was once the Golden Knights’ top prospect, but the past handful of seasons have seen his stock fluctuate. As his age has gone up, his production has stayed relatively the same, and The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler sees him more as a bottom-pairing defenseman, especially for his size at 5-foot-10.

“It’ll take the right coach to believe and trust in him at the NHL level, as is always the case with smaller defensemen, but I see him becoming a No. 5 at five-on-five and a PP2 QB. I think there’s a chance he’s never allowed to become that and is made to be a square peg in a round hole as a AAAA call-up type but it’s not my job to rank based on the way others see him.” (from ‘Vegas Golden Knights are No. 22 in 2025 NHL prospect pool rankings,’ The Athletic, 1/18/25).

Cormier has played the past four seasons with the Silver Knights and has played only two games in the NHL (both during the 2023-24 season). We’ll see if he will get an extended look this season with Alex Pietrangelo out of the mix.

Carl Lindbom

As a seventh-round pick, Carl Lindbom is one of the most exciting prospects in the Golden Knights’ pool, which is notoriously not very deep. We’ll touch more on goaltending in the next section, but Lindbom was one of a few standouts in the AHL last season.

At 22 years old, there is a legitimate path to the NHL for Lindbom, and while the Golden Knights have Adin Hill inked for another six years, the backup role could be Lindbom’s in the next season or two after some more seasoning in the AHL.

As always, goaltenders are extremely difficult to project, so it’s hard to say where he will be at the end of next season or in five years. Truth be told, though, the Golden Knights certainly have an intriguing prospect here.

Backup Goaltending Situation

Hill signed a contract extension to stay in the Sin City for another six years, and that contract, which carries a $6.25 million average annual value, kicks in starting this season. Behind him is where things get interesting.