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The Vegas Golden Knights announced Thursday that goalie Robin Lehner is expected to miss the entire 2022-23 season due to hip surgery. The team hasn’t determined an exact timeline for Lehner’s recovery. This will leave the Golden Knights pretty thin at goaltender heading into this season.
What this move does do is clear the Golden Knights of any salary cap issues. Lehner is due $5 million per season through 2024-25. That $5M cap hit will head to long-term injured reserve, which gets Vegas out of being over the cap. The problem is how the Golden Knights will proceed at goaltender.
Laurent Brossoit and Logan Thompson are the two goaltenders who would enter the 2022-23 season in net for the Golden Knights. Michael Hutchinson could also be in the mix. Thompson performed well in his first season in the NHL, going 10-5-3 with a 2.68 GAA and .914 save percentage. Vegas also just hired Bruce Cassidy to take over as head coach for Pete DeBoer.
Lehner played 44 games last season, picking up 23 wins with a 2.83 GAA and .907 SV%. At 31 years old, Lehner could be toward the end of his NHL career. He’s had to deal with injuries and other healthy issues throughout his career. Hip surgery will be tough to come back from at this age.