The Vegas Golden Knights will be without one of their leading goal scorers.
On Thursday, it was reported that the Golden Knights placed Ivan Barbashev on the Injured Reserve with an upper-body injury.
Injuries always seem to pile up for the Golden Knights around this time of year. It’s a sizable loss for the team though, as his 15 goals are tied for the team lead alongside Brett Howden. Moreover, his 30 points are tied with Mark Stone’s for second on the team behind Jack Eichel’s 48 points.
Barbashev was pacing to have a career year, as he was on pace for 39 goals and 79 points, which is still realistic at this point. The 29-year-old was selected by the St. Louis Blues in the second round of the 2014 draft and scored a career-high 26 goals and 60 points in 81 games in 2021-22. He’s a two-time Stanley Cup champion, winning one with the Blues in 2019 and one with the Golden Knights in 2023 after he was traded to the team.
During the Knights’ run to the Stanley Cup, Barbashev scored seven goals and 18 points in 22 games and followed that up with 19 goals and 45 points in 82 games in his first full season with the team.
Nearly halfway through the season, and the Golden Knights look like the best team in the Pacific Division. Through 37 games, they have a 25-9-3 record for 53 points, four ahead of the Los Angeles Kings and six ahead of the Edmonton Oilers. They are 15-4-0 at home.

Marc-Edouard Vlasic set to make season debut

The San Jose Sharks are set to get one of their veteran defenceman back soon, as left-shot defenceman Marc-Edouard Vlasic is set to make his season debut on Thursday.
Vlasic, now 37, has been in the league since 2006-07, playing 1,296 games with the Sharks and scoring 83 goals and 376 points. The veteran defenceman was with the team through their years of contention as one of the most underrated defencemen in the league, and was on the team when they went to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2016.
Sadly, the Sharks have been in a downward spiral for the past five seasons, as they haven’t played a playoff game since they went to the Western Conference Finals in 2019, losing to Ivan Barbashev and the St. Louis Blues.
Last season, Vlasic scored six goals and 12 points in 57 games for one of the worst teams in league history. In the end, the Sharks landed Macklin Celebrini, one of the best young players in the league. Nearly halfway through the season, the Sharks have taken a step forward, albeit they’re still bad. After 40 games, they have an 11-23-6 record for 28 points, the second-fewest in the league.
Funnily enough, Vlasic was selected in the second round of the 2005 draft. The pick the Sharks used originally belonged to the Calgary Flames, as they traded it to the Sharks for Miikka Kiprusoff. That’s a trade win for both teams.

Zachary L’Heureux suspended for three games

On Thursday, the sixth suspension of the regular season was handed down, as Nashville Predators forward Zachary L’Heureux was suspended for three games for a slew-foot on Minnesota Wild defenceman Jared Spurgeon.
It may seem steep on the surface level for a first-time offender, but there are some important things to keep in mind. For starters, Spurgeon did not return to the game and left on crutches. Secondly, while it was the first time in his 33-game National Hockey League career he was suspended, L’Heureux has a lengthy history of suspension in the Québec Maritimes Junior Hockey League and the American Hockey League.
Between the two levels, he has 11 suspensions in just five seasons, some of the suspensions were silly, such as a “staged fight” in the QMJHL, while he was also suspended 10 games for an incident with a fan.
It seems as if this suspension is a way to nip his bad behaviour in the bud before he starts playing over the edge.
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