During the Vegas Golden Knights’ 5-on-3 power play early in the second period, coach Bruce Cassidy subbed out Victor Olofsson for Pavel Dorofeyev on the top power-play unit.
It worked. Dorofeyev scored twice on the man advantage in the 4-1 victory against the Minnesota Wild at T-Mobile Arena on Sunday.
Cassidy called it a ‘gut instinct’ type of move.
“Gut instinct. Pav’s a shooter. He’s played that position when Olofsson was out. So to me, they’re very interchangeable,” Cassidy said. “So I just felt like, let’s give Pav a shot. Our power play’s been good, not great. Maybe some guys that were on it before that top unit would be a little hungrier. That’s all it was. He happened to finish, so, good for him. He can finish. I’m sure we’ll toggle back and forth as we go along here, but, right now, it worked out well for us.”
While the first power-play goal tied the game, it was Keegan Kolesar’s goal that broke the tie and ended a Golden Knights’ three-hour, 19-minute stretch without a 5-on-5 goal.
Kolesar’s goal was the quintessential ‘greasy’ goal. He got inside position and tapped in a rebound into an empty n et. It was the type of of goal Cassidy said they needed to break out of their slump.
“It was huge for us,” Cassidy said. “We felt that when you’re not scoring, sometimes you’re trying to make an extra pass or whatever. You’re hitting posts. How about a greasy one, right? It couldn’t have been any greasier.”
Paul Delos Santos is the Las Vegas sports insider for Dice City Sports. Follow him on X at @PaulDelos_.
