Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Maybe it’s time to start believing in the Henderson Silver Knights.
When a team puts together a five-game winning streak in October, it can be easy to write it off as early-season success that lacks any longer-term meaning. Other opponents trying to incorporate youth and other new faces may still be trying to get themselves organized, and it can be an opportune time to collect points.
Perhaps that is so, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss what the Silver Knights are doing. They own a 5-1-1-0 record that has moved them up to second place in the Pacific Division. On Wednesday night they jumped on the visiting Ontario Reign, striking three times in the opening 4:09 of the second period to help turn a 2-0 deficit into a 6-2 victory. It was a good test for Henderson, which has already chalked up two wins this season against Ontario after losing six of eight meetings with the Reign in 2024-25.
Third-year head coach Ryan Craig has a well-balanced team that saw 13 players record at least a point in Wednesday’s win. Braeden Bowman, who scored 14 goals as a rookie a year ago, has already put up five goals in his first seven games. Former AHL All-Star Raphael Lavoie, who hit 28 goals two seasons ago with the Bakersfield, is rolling. So is Tanner Laczynski, their leading scorer in 2024-25. Jonas Røndbjerg, a fixture with the team since its inaugural 2020-21 season, is his usual reliable self. Young prospects like Matyas Sapovaliv (a 2022 second-round draft pick), Mathieu Cataford, Jackson Hallum, Kai Uchacz and Tuomas Uronen have solid support around them up front.
Defenseman Dylan Coghlan is back with the NHL organization where he began his pro career, as the Golden Knights did a lot of work fortifying its defensive depth chart during the offseason. Jeremy Davies came over after an All-Star season with the Belleville Senators. Jayson Megna came aboard with a two-year deal and assumed the captaincy in Henderson. Lucas Johansen, a two-time Calder Cup champion with the Hershey Bears, is back after playing 38 games with the Silver Knights last season. It’s a group that is poised to help the development of blueline prospects like Lukas Cormier, Viliam Kmec and Christoffer Sedoff.
The early fundamental numbers are quite solid. Henderson has surrendered just 2.14 goals per game, and have killed of 22 of 25 shorthanded opportunities (88.0 percent). And they’ve done so with some early lineup upheaval; Carl Lindbom’s absence since his NHL recall last week has left the goaltending up to Jesper Vikman and first-year pro Cameron Whitehead. The trio has a combined .931 save percentage through seven games. Henderson has also been without Cole Reinhardt, who earned a spot with Vegas out of camp, and injured forward Trevor Connelly, a first-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.
Last year’s Silver Knights team didn’t win its fifth game until Dec. 3 en route to a last-place finish in the Pacific Division. So while this year’s start gives them a little breathing room, it’s also a positive in the bigger picture. Winning or development: Which is more important? Talk to enough AHL head coaches and the answers will hit on several different points, but the general consensus tends to land somewhere around the idea that winning breeds development.
Henderson has missed out on growth opportunities. They failed to qualify for the Calder Cup Playoffs in each of the last three seasons. In 2021-22, they finished sixth in the division and were swept in the best-of-three first round. Their only real success came in their inaugural season, a COVID-abbreviated 2020-21 campaign in which they finished first and then reached the final of a Pacific Division playoff tournament.
Up next for the Silver Knights is a two-game visit to Abbotsford to take on the defending champions this weekend. It’s a chance to measure themselves further – as well as being the start of a stretch of five games in eight nights as the schedule begins to intensify, something that Henderson must navigate.
Here comes November for a team that looks more than ready to build on this October success.
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.