Robin Lehner starts in net for Golden Knights
Goaltender Robin Lehner ended last season in net for the Golden Knights. He began the new one there, too.
Lehner started the Knights’ season opener against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena. It was the first time in the team’s four seasons that Marc-Andre Fleury did not start the first game.
Lehner made 20 saves, stopping the final 18 shots he faced, in a 5-2 victory.
The move wasn’t surprising after Lehner took over the starting job in the 2020 postseason and signed a five-year, $25 million extension in October.
He underwent shoulder surgery in the offseason but said Tuesday he had “no issues.” It was Lehner’s fourth time starting a season opener and first since 2017.
Lehner went 3-0 with a shutout after being acquired by the Knights at the trade deadline in February and posted a 1.99 goals-against average and .917 save percentage in the playoffs, when he started 16 of 20 games.
Knights coach Pete DeBoer said he would alternate Lehner and Fleury early in the season before settling on a No. 1. Fleury is fifth on the NHL’s all-time wins list with 466, 18 behind No. 4 Ed Belfour.
“It’s a strength of our group, and we’d be crazy not to use it,” DeBoer said. “I foresee us splitting a lot of the early games here until we get to a point where we’re not going to anymore, and who knows when that’ll be.”
Right is might
The Knights’ third line of left wing Alex Tuch, center Cody Glass and right wing Nicolas Roy is a rarity in the NHL: It features all right-handed players.
The team has never started a season with an all-righty line before.
Glass said he thinks he’s been on one in the past, but it requires an adjustment. The three haven’t had many reps together, either, because Tuch was nursing an undisclosed injury for much of training camp.
“Not having that much time with players like that, it’s hard to get used to,” Glass said.
Emergency D
The Knights opened the season with five defensemen, potentially leaving them vulnerable to an injury in the back end. DeBoer said he hadn’t given much thought as to whether he would switch a forward to defense in an emergency situation, but center Chandler Stephenson said Thursday that he played on the blue line some before his pro career.
”He skates backwards faster than most guys skate forward,” DeBoer said. “He would be one of the guys that would be at the tip of our tongue if we ever got in that position.”
Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.
