Golden Knights’ Mark Stone Undergoes Back Surgery; Expected to be Ready For Start of 2022-23 Season
After failing to qualify for the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Vegas Golden Knights forward Mark Stone underwent back surgery Thursday, according to Danny Webster of The Las Vegas Sun.
The procedure was aimed to help resolve an ongoing back issue that limited Vegas’ captain to just 37 games this past season. Club officials are hopeful he’ll be fully recovered by the start of training camp in the fall.
Stone, 30, first encountered the injury during the 2020-21 campaign, as The Athletic’s Jesse Granger reported. Since then, the 6’4″ forward has attempted to battle through the pain, however, it proved to be too much to overcome in 2021-22.
In the end, he and the Golden Knights agreed that opting for surgery was the best course of action to take. Now, the right-hander will focus on recovering throughout the off-season in hopes of hitting the ground running in September.
During the brief time he spent on the ice, Stone averaged just 18:21 minutes of ice-time per game. That served as his lowest total since 2014-15, when he earned 17:01 minutes a night.
Overall, the 2021-22 All-Star scored nine goals and 30 points during his 10th NHL season. He also posted 71 shots on goal, 56 takeaways, 24 blocks and 19 hits.
The native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, was named the franchise’s first-ever captain prior to the shortened 56-game schedule back in January 2021. Previously, he served as an assistant captain with the Ottawa Senators from 2017-2019.
For his career, Stone has compiled 514 games split across two different franchises (Ottawa, Vegas), registering 179 goals and 476 points. Once he reaches the 500th-point mark, he’ll become just the sixth skater from the 2010 NHL Draft to accomplish that feat, joining Tyler Seguin, Taylor Hall, Jeff Skinner, Ryan Johansen and Vladimir Tarasenko.
Vegas signed Stone to an eight-year, $76-million contract extension back in March 2019. The deal, which includes a full no-move clause, runs through 2026-27 and carries a $9.5 million cap hit per season.
Unfortunately, Stone wasn’t the only player that missed significant time as the Golden Knights were riddled with injuries this past season. In fact, they finished with the sixth-most man-games lost among all 32 franchises in the league.
Most notably, Max Pacioretty was limited to just 39 games largely due to a nagging lower-body injury. Goaltender Robin Lehner also missed significant time because of knee and shoulder injuries, and recently underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum.
In missing all these games, Vegas underperformed throughout the past season, finishing with a mediocre 43-31-8 record, good for 94 points. Sadly, they placed just three points back of the Nashville Predators for the final wild-card seed in the West, missing the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.
As currently constructed, the Golden Knights are projected to exceed next season’s salary cap ($82.5 million) by $566,667, which should make for an intriguing off-season in Sin City.
-Thomas Hall
Twitter: @ThomasHall85