Goaltender Ilya Samsonov will get the start for the Golden Knights as they look for their seventh win in eight games on Saturday against the Seattle Kraken.
Samsonov makes his first appearance since Sunday in the Knights’ 3-2 win over the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. The 27-year-old netminder made 20 saves for his fourth win in five starts to improve to 7-3-1 on the season.
He’ll get the call against a Seattle team that’s lost four of five and has eight goals in that stretch. Five of them came in a 5-1 win Dec. 12 against the Boston Bruins.
Former Knights center Chandler Stephenson will make his return to T-Mobile Arena for the first time since signing a seven-year deal with Seattle in the offseason.
Stephenson had 237 points in 327 games with the Knights and was selected as an All-Star in 2021-22.
“Hopefully he gets a nice hand from the crowd here,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “He had a lot of good years here and helped us win the Stanley Cup.”
The Knights will go a second straight game without left wing Ivan Barbashev and center Nicolas Roy due to upper-body injuries. They’re making some changes on the lines as well.
Brett Howden will now be the left wing on center Tomas Hertl’s line with right wing Keegan Kolesar, moving Tanner Pearson to William Karlsson’s line with right wing Victor Olofsson.
Cassidy is going with a fourth line that responded well when put together in Thursday’s 3-1 win over Vancouver. Tanner Laczynski will be the center, moving Cole Schwindt to left wing and Alexander Holtz on the right.
“They’re a good team. They got a lot of good players and a lot of skill,” Olofsson said. “If we can shut their top guys down and have a solid game defensively like we’ve had here the past few games, I think we’ve got a good shot at winning.”
Projected lineup
Pavel Dorofeyev — Jack Eichel — Mark Stone
Brett Howden — Tomas Hertl — Keegan Kolesar
Tanner Pearson — William Karlsson — Victor Olofsson
Cole Schwindt — Tanner Laczynski — Alexander Holtz
Brayden McNabb — Shea Theodore
Noah Hanifin — Alex Pietrangelo
Nic Hague — Zach Whitecloud
Ilya Samsonov
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.