Tortorella Shuffling The Deck In Search Of Something VGK Should Have Found Long Ago – SinBin.vegas

(Photo Credit: Ken Boehlke, SinBin.vegas)

John Tortorella is rolling the dice with a new combination of forward lines, including a top-six that has never started a single game together. The new look lineup expected to begin Game 4 is as follows…

Barbashev-Eichel-Dorofeyev
Smith-Marner-Stone
Howden-Hertl-Kolesar
Smith-Dowd-Sissons

This gives us different options, and again, you guys run with it, right? We make a little change, and you guys run with it. You want all this information. There’s not much information. We changed it. We’re going to see how it works. -Tortorella

Having coached just 11 games with the Golden Knights, he’s searching for answers the same way many coaches do at the beginning of the year. He’s just being forced to do it before a pivotal game in a hostile building.

I’m still trying to feel my way through on some of the things. I don’t know what happened in the 82 game schedule. I don’t know the flows of the lines, of what line was working with one another. I’m relying on the other coaches, and those are the conversations we have. -Tortorella

The challenge for Vegas is that these lines have extremely limited experience playing together. The least familiar of the trios is the line of Reilly Smith, Mitch Marner, and Mark Stone. They played a total of 7:13 together in the regular season and were matched up for three shifts so far in this series. The combination of Ivan Barbashev, Jack Eichel, and Pavel Dorofeyev feels like something the Golden Knights have tried before, but they’ve played only 27:19 together this year.

The bottom-six have had a bit more opportunity to play together, but even then, adding up the combined time on ice for all four lines projected to start Game 4 gives VGK just under 125 minutes (see full stats below). In contrast, Utah’s top line of Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, and Lawson Crouse played 359 minutes together at 5-on-5 by themselves.

Familiarity doesn’t always breed success, and VGK proved that last year when they moved William Karlsson up to the top line to play with Stone and Eichel. It was something they’d never tried before, and it worked like a charm. So, it’s absolutely possible that at least one of the new combinations clicks. It’s a risky play though, especially on the road in such a key game.

Utah controls the matchups, and there’s certainly a bit of concern with how the Eichel line will hold up without one of the better defensive wingers, or how the Hertl line will deal with the speed of the Mammoth’s youthful 2nd line (Cooley, Guenther, Yamamoto).

Tortorella is betting on instant chemistry because he doesn’t have six months of history to lean back on. It might be bold improvisation, or it may be tactical desperation. Game 4 will tell the story, and it could very well define the rest of the 2026 playoffs for the Golden Knights.

Barbashev-Eichel-Dorofeyev
27:19 TOI
22-20 Corsi
0.89-0.92 xG
4-2 High Danger Chances
2-1 G

Smith-Marner-Stone
7:13 TOI
7-4 Corsi
0.28-0.06 xG
1-0 High Danger Chances
0-1 G

Howden-Hertl-Kolesar
48:39 TOI
54-40 Corsi
2.52-2.53 xG
9-10 High Danger Chances
3-3 G

Smith-Dowd-Sissons
41:39 TOI
34-27 Corsi
1.48-0.88 xG
7-4 High Danger Chances
0-1 G

Total
124:50 TOI
117-91 Corsi
5.17-4.39 xG
21-16 High Danger Chances
5-6 G