Malcolm Subban’s start in net for the Golden Knights has gone wildly better than expected

Coming into their first season as an NHL franchise, one of the Vegas Golden Knights’ biggest strengths was their goaltending. While Marc-Andre Fleury is — what many believe to be — on the wrong side of 30 for a netminder, the fact that he’s won three Stanley Cups in his career makes him hard to count out.

Fleury’s veteran presence made him an instant fan favorite to the city of Vegas, and his .925 save percentage start to the season made him one of the NHL’s best through the first few weeks of the season.

Unfortunately, Fleury was derailed after taking a knee to the head in a game against the Detroit Red Wings last week. He was placed on injured reserve on Sunday with a concussion, leaving newly claimed Malcolm Subban to hold the fort in net. Subban wasn’t the Golden Knights’ original backup netminder to start the year, but they traded Calvin Pickard to Toronto just a week before, putting the Golden Knights in quite a conundrum.

Subban, before Sunday, had played a total of two games in his entire NHL career. Behind him, Maxime Lagace had zero NHL games of experience. In a span of a week, the Golden Knights went from a couple of league veterans to the NHL’s most inexperienced goaltending tandem.

In the two games since Subban took over in net for the Golden Knights, the 23-year-old netminder has done exactly what was needed of him. On Sunday, Subban made his Golden Knights debut to the tune of a 21-save victory against his former team, the Boston Bruins. Vegas got out to a two-goal lead in the second period and Subban did the rest as he allowed just one goal against Boston.

Tuesday night’s game against the Buffalo Sabres was much of the same for Subban as the Golden Knights took a lead into the third period. This time, however, the Sabres scored three straight — including the equalizer with eight seconds to play in regulation — as Buffalo forced overtime. The Golden Knights eventually came away with a 5-4 win in overtime, but Subban allowed those three goals in the last 10 minutes of the third.

That 10-minute stretch will be a learning moment for Subban throughout the rest of his time leading the pack in Vegas. Subban was picked up on waivers as a project piece for Vegas, who believed they could work with the young netminder over the years and mold him into an NHL player. Instead, Subban had to be thrown right into the fire thanks to Fleury’s injury, and so far the kid’s been better than anticipated.

Subban’s recent start on Tuesday showed exactly the kind of goaltender he needs to be for the rest of this stretch in Vegas. While Subban gave up the late three goals, he shut the door the rest of the night and ended the win with 30 saves.

In his two games played so far this season, Subban has a very respectable .911 save percentage and a 2.42 GAA. It’s a small sample size, of course, but the start hasn’t gone as catastrophically as some may have thought it would. It’s also been bolstered by the Golden Knights offense, which has scored a total of eight goals through Subban’s first few starts.

That bent-but-not-broken mentality may be just enough to help Subban and the Golden Knights through the rest of this stretch. There’s no timetable yet for Fleury’s return, but the team has been at some of its best defensively as it has rallied around Subban.

Thanks to Subban’s efforts, the Golden Knights are near the top of the league with a 5-1-0 record. The road will surely get more bumpy as the Golden Knights take on stronger teams, but Subban’s showed real promise so far through just a handful of games.