Top Vegas scorer missing Game 2 tonight - and coach goes to blender with his lines

This in from the Vegas Golden Knights, reports that forward Pavel Dorofeyev will miss Game 2 tonight, with d-man Alex Pietrangelo a game-time decision.

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Reported Jesse Granger of The Athletic: (Vegas coach Bruce) Cassidy says Pietrangelo has a chance to play tonight, they’ll make the call later. He ruled Dorofeyev out for tonight.”

Both Pietrangelo and Dorofeyev were on the ice for the optional skate.

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I expect the Oilers will go with the same lines and roster in Game 2, having played a near perfect game in Game 1.

Draisaitl – McDavid – Perry
Kane – Nugent-Hopkins – Hyman
Frederic – Henrique – Brown
Podkolzin – Janmark – Arvidsson

Nurse – Bouchard
Walman – Klingberg
Kulak – Emberson

Pickard
Skinner

Thanks to Danny Webster of the Las Vegas Review-Journal we also have the expected Vegas lines:

Barbashev-Eichel-Stone
Saad-Hertl-Olofsson
Howden-Karlsson-Smith
Pearson-Roy-Kolesar

McNabb-Theodore
Hanifin-Whitecloud
Hague-Korczak/Pietrangelo

My take

1. Dorofeyev led Vegas in scoring his season with 35 goals, 13 of them on the power play. He was a key linemate with Tomas Hertl on the second Vegas line most of the year. He got injured in Game 5 of the playoffs against the Wild, having scored one goal against Minnesota. He was also -5 goals plus-minus, so his line wasn’t exactly crushing it.

2. As for Pietrangelo, no Vegas player played more than his 22:24 in the regular season, nor more than his 22:31 (tied with Jack Eichel) against the Wild. Pietrangelo had played with injuries this year and wasn’t at best against the Wild, Vegas insiders report.

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Pietrangelo a game time decision for Vegas tonight.
He’s already missed one game.
It takes awhile sometimes but the Hockey Gords never forget.
They hand out their own brand of justice at the right moment. pic.twitter.com/iOfDutqyJN
— David Staples (@dstaples) May 8, 2025

3. It can be a non-blessing in disguise if a star player fights through injury or sickness to get back early to the line-up. We saw that when Chris Tanev returned early for the Flames in 2022 against the Oilers and was something of a pylon on the ice, as great a defender as he usually is. We saw Leon Draisaitl, Evander Kane and Darnell Nurse all look and play like shadows of themselves due to injury in the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.

4. Cassidy took the blender to the Vegas lines today, going away from more experimental lines, Webster reports, to the team’s normallines.

It looks like the coach is going to try to get more scoring out of the Eichel line, with Ivan Barbashev moved up. The third line headed up by Willian Karlsson is more of a checking line, with the fourth line a big-hitting, energy line.