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Monday Morning Mailbag: When will Erik Brannstrom get his next opportunity with the Golden Knights?

The road trip from Hell is over. The Golden Knights only managed to pull a couple wins out of the five-game stretch, but they did finish the road trip on a high note, beating the Philadelphia Flyers by a score of 1-0 on Saturday.

Thanks for that, Marc-Andre Fleury.

From here, the Knights have a good amount of work to do as they look to claw their way back to a .500 record, but considering how unlucky they’ve been as of late, it may only be a matter of time.

Speaking of which…

The Imagine Dragons curse was very real. Ever since the Las Vegas-based band performed in front of fans at T-Mobile Arena during the Stanley Cup Final, the Golden Knights had gone nine straight games without a regulation win (a 1-8-0 record, if we’re being exact). That’s pretty eerie, if you ask me.

Fortunately, the curse seems (!) to have been broken. The Knights finally got a regulation win Saturday, and that may have been just what they needed to get back to their winning ways. After all, it’s almost impossible for Vegas to get any less lucky. Despite posting some impressive possession metrics to start the season, the goals just weren’t coming as they were named the unluckiest team in the NHL. But after Saturday, in a game where the Knights were very much outplayed, they pulled out what one could reasonably consider a “lucky” win.

We still need to see it with our own eyes, but the Knights may be back in the saddle now in terms of luck.

I think it’s only a matter of time before William Karlsson gets going. Remember, it took him until the Golden Knights’ seventh game last year to score his first goal on the season, and, would you look at that, the Golden Knights are about to play their seventh game of the current season on Tuesday!

Karlsson has come close numerous times to scoring his first goal of the season over the last few games, but things just haven’t been bouncing his way — as has been the case for many Knights players. And considering his seemingly immediate drop-off in goal production, it’s easy to understand why one would be frustrated with his play. At the end of the day, his shooting percentage from last season truly was unsustainable, and it’s taken until now for things to even out.

That said, though, Karlsson is still a dynamic producer offensively. He may not have any goals, but he’s already picked up four assists on the season. The offense is most certainly there, and he’ll start reaping the benefits eventually.

The Brannwagon is in the shop at the moment.

After a mostly impressive summer, defenseman Erik Brannstrom was ultimately assigned to the Chicago Wolves after an average-at-best finish to the preseason. Unsurprisingly, Brannstrom had been killing it with the Wolves to start the season, having scored two goals in as many games and serving as a dynamic presence on the Chicago blue line.

Unfortunately, Brannstrom was the recipient of a vicious hit from Avalanche prospect Sergei Boikov a couple weeks ago and has not seen the ice since. It has been confirmed, though, that he did not suffer a concussion from the hit and is expected to return to the Wolves’ lineup next week.

Assuming Brannstrom continues the play he exhibited prior to his injury, it may not be all that long before we see him earn some time in the NHL. Had he not been injured, it would have been interesting to see if the Golden Knights decided to call him up over Jake Bischoff in the wake of a potential injury to Deryk Engelland.