Stanley Cup Final: How Pavel Dorofeyev leveled up for Golden Knights - ESPN

RALEIGH, N.C. — For any other player, swatting a puck out of midair for an overtime goal in a Stanley Cup playoff game would have been a career highlight. For Pavel Dorofeyev, it was a Tuesday.

«It's what I gotta do. It's just my job,» he said after winning Game 5 against the Anaheim Ducks last month and putting his team one win away from the conference finals.

Somewhere, Golden Knights coach John Tortorella's ears starting ringing. There is nothing an NHL player can say that will endear him to a hardscrabble coach faster than professing a workmanlike attitude.

«I've listened to some of his interviews after games. I just like the way he handles himself. He's a hockey player,» Tortorella said. «What he said a couple of weeks ago: 'It's my job.' I think that's the way he thinks.»

Why was Dorofeyev so laser-focused on his job? «Right now, I don't know what else to talk about,» he told ESPN with a grin. «Just trying to focus on the job that we'll have to do for three more weeks. Hard work and then, yeah, maybe rest.»

Dorofeyev, 25, doesn't get the name recognition of his more heralded teammates such as Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner and Mark Stone. What he does have is more goals scored (10) than any of them in the Golden Knights' run to the Stanley Cup Final and in the past two regular seasons (72) — positioning him for a huge payday as a restricted free agent this summer.

«Like everybody, I just admire the way he fires the puck. He's got a natural scoring touch, especially when he's sitting in his office on his one-timer side,» Vegas forward Colton Sissons said. «He's a quite special, elite player.»

And he's getting better. Perceptions that Dorofeyev is a one-dimensional scoring winger have started to officially shift in the