Dorofeyev fast start with Golden Knights proof he’s found NHL groove

The rise of Pavel Dorofeyev has come so fast -- and yet, in so many ways, it feels inevitable. When he looks back at the path that led him here, he doesn’t point to a single lightning-strike moment. He points to a grind that finally found its groove.

“About a year and a half ago I was a rotational player,” the 24-year-old Golden Knights forward told NHL.com. International. “I think I played in 47 games the year before (in 2023-24), and the following season I was in the lineup every night. That’s where the better stats came from -- more ice time and being on the first power-play unit. That’s what made the difference.”

Dorofeyev entered the 2024-25 season in the shadows -- a player with promise and flashes, but not yet a full-blown NHL sniper. By season’s end, he had shattered his previous career high of 13 goals with a team-leading 35, played all 82 regular-season games, and led Vegas in both shots (254) and shot attempts (436).

He has picked up where he left off this season.

He had a hat trick in the season opener against the Los Angeles Kings on Oct. 8, and had a total of five goals through his first three games to earn him NHL First Star of the Week honors.

He followed with a goal and an assist against the Boston Bruins on Oct. 16, and on Monday, scored a beauty against Frederik Andersen of the Carolina Hurricanes -- the same forehand-to-backhand move that landed Peter Forsberg on a Swedish postage stamp 30 years ago.

Sure, it doesn’t hurt having Mitch Marner and Tomas Hertl as your linemates, but on a deep roster like Vegas, you’d better live up to that privilege. Dorofeyev has.

From a rotational role bouncing between the AHL and NHL to a trusted scorer on a Stanley Cup contender, Dorofeyev’s journey is a study in patience, adaptation, and seizing opportunity. To him, “never too high, never too low” isn’t an overused hockey cliché -- it is truly a mindset. Everything that has happened to him, and what didn’t, he takes in stride.

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Dorofeyev, who turns 25 on Sunday, was born in Nizhny Tagil, Russia -- an industrial town in the Ural Mountains about 1,100 miles east of Moscow. His father, Igor, also a hockey pro who spent his playing career in Russia’s second-tier league in the 1990s and 2000s and became a coach afterwards, put his son on skates at age 5.

Pavel spent his early years within the same region, playing for junior teams in Tyumen and Magnitogorsk. His goal-scoring in Russia’s Junior League was strong enough to get him selected by the Golden Knights in the third round (No. 79) of the 2019 NHL Draft.

Dorofeyev says he never had a single role model in hockey. Instead, he built a composite image of what a perfect hockey player should be.

“As a kid, I kept watching Sidney Crosby and tried to understand how he reads and thinks the game,” he said. “I watched Alex Ovechkin and his one-timers that no one has been able to stop for over 20 years. I always wanted to shield the puck with my body like Alexander Radulov -- he’s also from Nizhny Tagil. I just wanted to take the best qualities from players like that and apply them to my own game.”

In June 2020, after his second KHL season with Metallurg Magnitogorsk, a multiplayer trade sent Dorofeyev to Traktor Chelyabinsk, but his stay there would be short-lived. In January 2021, he signed his three-year entry-level contract with Vegas and began his North American adventure with Henderson of the American Hockey League, fully aware that the coming months and years would test his resolve.

“Initially, the hardest thing was the language,” he said. “Nobody understands you, you don’t understand anyone. ‘My name is Pavel’ was basically all I remembered from studying English in Russian school. But over time I learned, met people, and it got better.”

He remembers how shockingly warm Las Vegas felt when he arrived that February from the dead of winter in Chelyabinsk. His prior hockey travels -- to the World Juniors in Czechia, the Spengler Cup in Switzerland, other tournaments in Finland -- had somewhat prepared him for new environments, but he’d never seen anything remotely like The Strip.

Thankfully, he brought enough patience and confidence to persevere through two and a half years of bouncing between the AHL and NHL. He scored 27 goals in 2021-22, his first full season with Henderson, but earned only a two-game call-up with Vegas. The following year, he spent the final month of the regular season with the Golden Knights, scored seven goals in 18 games -- only to find himself on the taxi squad during the playoff run that ended with Vegas lifting the Stanley Cup. His name is not engraved on the trophy.

“I worked hard and stayed ready to play the entire time if the team needed me,” Dorofeyev recalled. “It didn’t happen that year, but on the positive side I got to see the whole process -- how guys prepared for each game. It is what it is; nothing I could change. So, I decided not to dwell on it but to work even harder, so next time my name does end up on the Cup.”

That maturity matters. It’s one thing to have talent; it’s another to wait your turn, absorb coaching, learn a new language, adapt to a new continent -- and then explode.

In the Vegas locker room, Dorofeyev says there was no single mentor, just a culture of support.

“If I ever needed anything, I could go to anyone,” he said. “We’re a close group.”

He credits fellow Russians Ivan Barbashev and former teammate Evgenii Dadonov with helping him transition off the ice -- a vital connection for any player thousands of miles from home.

Pavel’s parents, who now live in St. Petersburg, are coming to visit him in late October, when the Golden Knights begin their six-game homestand.

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You’d be hard-pressed to find a player whose first NHL goal came in a more bizarre fashion than Dorofeyev’s. He might be the only player in League history to have done it with his head.

On March 12, 2023, in St. Louis, during a scramble in the Blues’ crease with the game tied 3-3, William Karlsson fired a close-range wrister off the pads of Blues goalie Jordan Binnington , and the puck bounced high -- striking Dorofeyev in the visor as he skated toward the right post. It ended up being the game-winner.

“That was a fun one,” he recalled, smiling. “I’m just glad it didn’t go off my face.”

Dorofeyev says he never seriously considered returning to Russia -- and credits the Silver Knights’ coaching staff for that.

“Maybe if it got to the third or fourth year (in the AHL), I’d start thinking that way,” he said. “But the coaches in Henderson always encouraged me to stay focused and told me my time would come. So, I decided to give everything I had to make it a reality.”

Last season, that determination finally paid off. With a quick left-shot release and a knack for finding open ice, Dorofeyev carved out a niche on the power play, and his improved positioning and willingness to finish in tight produced a breakout year.

On March 20, he delivered one of the season’s signature moments: a hat trick -- his second of the season -- in a 5-1 win against the Boston Bruins, including his 12th power-play goal, which at the time tied a franchise record.

Nights like that do more than fill the scoresheet. They announce a player’s arrival.

Now comes perhaps the biggest challenge: sustaining excellence. Entering Wednesday, Dorofeyev was tied for the League lead with seven goals in his first seven games, already hinting this isn’t a fluke.

He has 93 points (62 goals, 31 assists) in 156 NHL games.

With his two-year bridge contract expiring after this season (currently at $1.835 million average annual value), the timing couldn’t be better to prove he’s not just a one-season wonder. With his shot, his stick-handling, and two elite linemates, everything seems to be falling into place.

For now, Vegas and its fans have a new threat -- one who quietly waited his turn, honed his craft, and then erupted.

For Vegas, he’s no longer a complementary piece -- he’s a difference-maker. For hockey fans, he’s a reminder that the next wave often arrives quietly: no buzzer-beater, no viral moment, just consistent, relentless work.

No drama, no shortcuts, no hype -- just a grinder who became a goal scorer. And he’s only getting started.