How Long Can Pavel Dorofeyev Stay Hot?
Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
When Jonathan Marchessault left the Vegas Golden Knights this offseason, it felt like the end of an era. It wasn’t like the Original Knights were all gone — William Karlsson and Shea Theodore are still in Vegas — but Marchessault leaving felt like the book closing on the franchise’s first wave of wing talent. Reilly Smith? Gone. Alex Tuch? Gone. Max Pacioretty? Gone.
Someone was going to have to step up in a big way to provide offense behind Mark Stone, and someone was going to have to replace Marchessault’s sheer production. Not only did Marchessault score 42 goals last year, he was basically 25-plus goals in the bank for every full season in Vegas.
The player who has most stepped up to fill that void has easily been Pavel Dorofeyev, who scored his ninth goal, which would stand as the game-winner against the Anaheim Ducks last night.
Pavel Dorofeyev doesn't give up in tight, scoring his 9th goal of the season!#VegasBorn pic.twitter.com/P6K9N6DeTT
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) November 14, 2024
Vegas’ third-rounder from 2019 is blossoming in his second full NHL season. Not only do his nine goals lead the Knights roster, he’s tied for 13th in the NHL alongside stars such as Kirill Kaprizov, Dylan Larkin, John Tavares, and Mark Scheifele. At this point, it’s a pretty good bet that he passes the 13 goals he scored as a rookie (in 47 games) before the end of the year. Heck, it might even be before December.
Are we seeing the next dynamic Knights winger breaking out before our eyes? Or is this a flash in the pan that will come back to earth?
On one hand, it feels like only a matter of time before Dorofeyev cools down. He’s shooting 18.8% on the season, and that doesn’t happen often. In the Salary Cap Era, the list of players 29 who’ve shot 18% or more over 200 shots fall into one of four categories:
- Slam-Dunk Hall of Famers (Steven Stamkos, Teemu Selänne, Auston Matthews)
- All-Stars On the Shooting Bender of Their Lives (Chris Kreider, Filip Forsberg, Anders Lee)
- Wait? How Did That Guy Get There? Flukes (Brad Boyes?!)
- Was On Edmonton Oilers Power Play (Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins)
Unless you’re really good or really, really lucky, you eventually run cold. But Dorofeyev has something in his arsenal that rarely goes cold: Shot volume.
Pavel Dorofeyev opens the scoring in Seattle with a power play goal, his eighth goal of the season. pic.twitter.com/btJ4PbXuCx
— Golden Knights Radio (@VGKRadioNetwork) November 9, 2024
Goal totals are often dependent on numerous things that are largely out of the shooter’s hands: the quality of goalie they’re facing, how aggressively the netminder is playing them, whether they’re in position or not, etc. The ability to create one’s own shot, however, is much more in the control of a skater, and the players who shoot the most tend to be the ones who get the most goals. If you keep shooting, even on a cold streak, something’s going to get into the net eventually, right?
Dorofeyev’s got that shooter’s mindset that’s necessary for racking up goals. He leads Vegas with 48 shots, which is three ahead of Jack Eichel, despite playing about 75 fewer minutes in all situations. There are 340 forwards in the NHL who’ve played 15o minutes or more this season. Dorofeyev has 11.4 shots per hour, which ranks 15th in the NHL. That’s more than William Nylander, Nikita Kucherov, Matthew Tkachuk, Artemi Panarin, Tage Thompson, and yes… Marchessault. All those players have scored 40 goals in the NHL.
If Dorofeyev is able to keep up this volume shooting, good things are going to happen. There are 16 players who averaged 11 shots per hour (minimum 1000 minutes) last season. Seven of them scored 40 goals. The average among those 16 was 39 goals, and the median was 34. Matthew Tkachuk set the floor for Dorofeyev at “only” 26 tallies.
It would be surprising (though not impossible) to see Dorofeyev hit the 46-goal total that he’s on pace for, but the good news is this isn’t a mere flash-in-the-pan. Dorofeyev has already scored 20 goals in 67 games prior to the start of the year (a 25-goal full-season pace) while playing under 14 minutes per night. The fact that he’s up to 15:44 (and climbing) puts 30 goals very much in play, with upside for more. It’s looking like the 24-year-old is in the middle of a genuine breakout season.
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