Adin Hill’s confidence is the highest it has been all season, and it has nothing to do with the goal he tried to score Thursday.
Had that 200-foot attempt actually found its way to the net with the Vegas Golden Knights up three against the Pittsburgh Penguins, it might have been a high he would never come down from.
Hill admittedly didn’t get everything on the attempt that seemed to flutter by the time it got to center ice.
“I got a decent amount, but it’s OK it was knocked down,” said Hill, laughing. “It was a touch left.”
What will do wonders for Hill’s confidence is having one of his better performances of the season in the Knights’ 6-2 win over the Penguins at T-Mobile Arena.
Hill finished with 24 saves in his third consecutive start. More important, he helped the Knights get a much-needed win — just their third in their nine games since coming back from the Olympic break.
“You just keep putting in the work,” Hill said. “It’s nice to string a few games in a row here and get in a bit of a rhythm. Just onto the next game and stay focused.”
What to make of the goalies?
The Knights have been in a bit of a bind when it comes to their goaltenders.
Akira Schmid has been their most consistent, reliable and healthy netminder. He’s earned the career-high 28 starts he’s made, and it’s not just because of availability.
But it’s the time of year when the Knights are trying to get into playoff form. That goes for their Stanley Cup-winning goaltender.
“He’s our No. 1,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “He’s paid to be a No. 1. He’s got the experience.”
Hill has started six of the Knights’ nine games since coming back from the Olympic break. This week has been his busiest stretch in some time.
But the three starts this week — despite going 1-2 — were encouraging. He’s faced 60 shots and allowed seven goals, including back-to-back starts of allowing only two.
He’s making the saves that were hard to come by in the beginning of the season. He was credited with 2.53 goals saved above expected, according to MoneyPuck, in one of his better analytical outings of the season.
And he got the run support this time. The Knights scored six times on 17 shots.
“I feel like we’ve been playing good lately, but we just found a way to stick through it and put a few more pucks in the net tonight,” Hill said. “But I thought we had a great game. We just got to carry that forward and keep going.”
Running up that Hill
Hill’s season again has been defined by a lengthy lower-body injury.
The three months he missed cost him a chance to build off a career-high 50 starts last season. A potential roster spot on Canada’s Olympic roster also went away.
“I haven’t played a ton of hockey games this year,” Hill said. “Being injured for a while there sucks, and you want to be on the ice every night.”
Much of the Knights’ success heading toward the playoffs rests on the shoulders of the 6-foot-4-inch netminder.
Part of that is managing Hill’s workload. Load management, if you will, without taxing him too much.
“We’ve got to be a little bit careful,” Cassidy said. “We don’t want to run him out there every night.”
Keep it rolling
Cassidy is trying to find the fine line of how to split the workload.
He doesn’t want to have Schmid go too long without starts with how consistent he’s been.
But Cassidy admitted he’s not going to map out starts between Hill and Schmid like he would in November and December.
“There’s always science behind this,” Cassidy said. “We have people that say, ‘Hey, you got to be a little careful. There’s a history.’ It’s not just a matter of, ‘Hey, he’s hot, let’s put him in there.’ There’s a little bit of that thought process, especially with a guy that’s missed some time earlier in the year, because we don’t want to go through that again over one start. So we want to manage that as well as we can.”
Cassidy said he would never play a goalie more than three times in one week. It’s likely Schmid starts Saturday against the Chicago Blackhawks.
That would give Hill an extra day off before facing the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday.
It was going to be Hill’s crease again eventually. The time has come, as Cassidy said, “where we felt he was ready to take the ball and roll with it.”
Said Hill: “It’s no secret you need to be hot going into the playoffs to have a chance. We’re just trying to focus building on that. It doesn’t always need to be said. We all know what’s expected and what we need to do. We’re just trying to build toward that.”
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
