The offseason for the Vegas Golden Knights could be summed up best by the late great Tom Petty when he coined the phrase the waiting is the hardest part. Whether it has to do with the arrival (or likely not, at this point) of Mitch Marner. Or what voodoo, if any, will be cooked up by General Manager Kelly McCrimmon to bring in another top-six forward. Also, whether it’ll end up being defined by the amount of original Vegas Golden Knights who left than anyone who came in. But there’s another adage that can apply to this offseason such as in the garden of patience, there are flowers of joy. Let’s assess one area of waiting (the top-six) and one possible “flower of joy” already in the system who can end that wait, Brendan Brisson.
Brendan Brisson Bid for a Top-Six Forward Role With the Vegas Golden Knights
Drafted by the Golden Knights back in 2020, Brisson has shown the kind of offensive consistency a lot of veterans would kill for. Here’s the statlines for his first two AHL seasons (team ranks in parenthesis)
2022-23: 18 goals (third), 19 assists (sixth), 37 points fourth), 58 Games
2023-24: 19 goals (third), 19 assists (tied for fifth), 38 points (third), 52 Games
When the stats are calculated over a regular 82-game schedule, it’s an expected total of 131 points combined for both seasons. Even though that is at the AHL level, it is still a strong scoring rate. If we compared among NHLers and centremen, that’s more than the departed Jonathan Marchessault (126) and Chandler Stephenson (116) in the same time frame.
Consistent Offensive Force In Multiple Levels
There is something that he’s going to have to address with the extended ice time he’ll get with the VGK. For starters, his habit of going big chunks of time between goals. He had five goalless streaks of more than three regular season games in his AHL career. On the plus side, he only had one pointless streak of three regular games or more once (1/25-2/11/2023). But for a team that’s been in the middle or just above it in scoring the past few seasons, that’s not gonna end up well for this hockey team.
A Snapshot of the Whole Season
Brendan Brisson’s stats in the 15 games he played last season (two goals, six assists, -5) weren’t earthshaking. But his primary role was as a band-aid, filling in for really good players like William Karlsson and Jack Eichel. Also, he spent the vast majority of those 15 games either on the third or fourth line. Within that scope, it’s a respectable stat line. Especially given who he faced in the last two-thirds of the season.
In that 11 game timespan (February/March), the Golden Knights took on 11 teams with over-.500 records. And that’s not counting the teams like the Minnesota Wild and Buffalo Sabres who came in on what ended up being hot streaks. All the while, the team was in the middle of a team-wide funk that came very close to derailing the entire season. That’s going to show up for a young player trying to find their game in the league.
Through all of that, he was able to highlight potential in the two goals he was able to score. First against a Pittsburgh Penguins team that, at the time, held playoff hopes.
Then, against a Buffalo Sabres team in March that was at the tail end of their seasonal peak. Both goals came off gorgeous backhand feeds, with the type of quick shot in front one expects from a top-six forward. With the potential comfort that comes from being a regular and not just the band-aid solution, it’s very easy to see a goal like the Buffalo one becoming a normal occurrence for Golden Knights fans.
“In A Garden of Patience, There Are Flowers of Joy”
It seems a good place to round back to the main point. Patience has never been close to synonymous with the Vegas Golden Knights. But in the case of Brendan Brisson, an emergence as a top-six forward could be the key to a revitalized offensive attack. And a whole lot less waiting for things to get good, compared to last season. Especially if the goaltending bounces back to 2022-2023 levels. But that’s another issue with a still long wait.
Main photo: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
