Monday, Jan. 13, 2025 | 2 a.m.
Through the first two months of the season, Pavel Dorofeyev scored 12 goals and appeared to be one of the Golden Knights’ top scoring threats.
Then, his offense went cold.
He had just three points in December, and five games into January, had just one goal.
“He (Dorofeyev) can score, and he will, and I’ve said it before,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Sometimes wingers can be streaky, so at the end of the day, he’s kept working, and done a good job.”
Dorofeyev’s effort paid off in Sunday’s 4-1 win over the Minnesota Wild at T-Mobile Arena.
He scored two power-play goals and had an assist for his first multi-point game since Nov. 29 and his second three-point game of the season. Dorofeyev is now leading the team in scoring with 16 goals.
With Jack Eichel out due to illness, Dorofeyev was among a slew of players who stepped up in his absence.
Keegan Kolesar scored his 10th goal of the season, and Tomáš Hertl scored his first goal in three games in the winning effort.
“I know everyone wants to score. They’re professionals. Of course, they want to score, but we’re dried up here a little bit at home,” Cassidy said on getting the offense going again. “We didn’t want to let it bleed into this game. We wanted to put a little extra effort into it.”
Prior to Kolesar’s goal, the Golden Knights had not scored a 5-on-5 goal since 10:08 of the first period in their game against the San Jose Sharks on Jan. 7. That was a 213-minute drought.
Sunday’s performance could get Dorofeyev back to the pace he was at to start the season.
Hertl, his lineman, said Dorofeyev is putting in the work to have success.
“You have to just stay with it,” Hertl said on getting out of a scoring dry spell. “If you have the chances and you have the looks, and if you play hard, it’ll eventually come. He (Dorofeyev) played hard. He doesn’t mind taking hits or holding onto the puck.”
“It’ll come your way, you’ll get on a heater, and you will start scoring goals again.”
Nicolas Roy said it was only a matter of time before Dorofeyev would start consistently finding the back of the net again.
“He’s (Dorofeyev) been pretty good lately. He’s got a great shot, and he proved it again tonight. That was fun to see,” Roy said.