Veteran lands on IR, prospect heads to AHL as Golden Knights release opening team

The Vegas Golden Knights have released their opening roster, which excludes William Karlsson, who will start the season on IR, and Brendan Brisson, who will head to the AHL top flight with the Henderson Silver Knights.

The Golden Knights made two moves on the waiver line yesterday, claiming Raphael Lavoie and Cole Schwindt. After successfully making their claims, the Golden Knights decided to keep her on their NHL roster and assign Brisson to the Silver Knights.

Related: Golden Knights claim two young forwards off waivers

Karlsson landing on IR isn't a surprise right now, but it would have been two weeks ago. HC Bruce Cassidy claimed it was injury-related maintenance. It's normal to miss a training session or two due to maintenance, but once that was over it became clear that the 31-year-old had something more important to do.

Related: William Karlsson's health is up in the air ahead of the Golden Knights' regular season opener

Without Karlsson, the Golden Knights will carry 13 forwards: Ivan Barbashev, Pavel Dorofeyev, Jack Eichel, Tomas Hertl, Alexander Holtz, Brett Howden, Keegan Kolesar, Raphael Lavoie, Victor Olofsson, Tanner Pearson, Nicolas Roy, Cole Schwindt and Mark Stein.

They will have eight defensemen: Nicolas Hague, Noah Hanifin, Ben Hutton, Kaedan Korczak, Brayden McNabb, Alex Pietrangelo, Shea Theodore and Zach Whitecloud. The two goalkeepers will be Adin Hill and Ilya Samsonov.

Lukas Cornier, Jakub Demek and Jordan Gustafson are also considered injured.

The Golden Knights begin their quest to become Stanley Cup champions for the second time on Wednesday, October 9th when they host the Colorado Avalanche at 7:00 PM PST at T-Mobile Arena.

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