Vegas Opens in Six Days With the Same Crease Problem It Had in June

The Golden Knights sent 16 players home from training camp on Monday and the goaltending situation came out of it exactly as it went in. Carter Hart is the starter. Adin Hill is listed behind him on the depth chart. Neither of those facts is new, and neither solves the underlying problem: Hart is the only goaltender on this roster who has logged meaningful NHL minutes, and the season opener against Chicago is September 29.

I've been writing about this since the summer. Akira Schmid went to Florida in June, Michael Hutchinson retired in July, and the organization has not added a credentialed backup since. The September 11 item about a former Knight getting another shot somewhere else only underlined how thin the market got. Hill is in the building, but his production share last season was essentially a coin flip with Hart — that's a tandem, not a starter-backup arrangement, and it requires both men to be healthy and sharp from the jump.

The rest of the roster has been addressed with some conviction. Stone is locked up, Bowman has his six-year deal, the defensive depth got a piece added in Parker Wotherspoon. The front office has made real decisions this offseason. The crease is the one place where the summer ended and the answer was still pending. Six days from now, that pending answer becomes a live problem.