Bad news for Mark Stone.

 The Las Vegas Golden Knights and their fans have many reasons to be excited for the upcoming 2022 - 2023 National Hockey League regular season, including Jack Eichel's first full seasons with the team, a brand new head coach in Bruce Cassidy, and of course a significantly diferent looking roster.

One thing fans will have to wait for however is the return of Golden Knights star forward Mark Stone. Stone underwent a major surgical procedure, lumbar discectomy, to fix a problem with his back. That procedure was performed by Dr. Robert Watkins, IV at Cedars Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital and at the time of the announcement the Golden Knights indicated that Stone was expected to be ready for the regular season.

While that still could very well be the case, we now appear to have confirmation that Stone will be out of action throughout at least the duration of training camp. During a recent article on the subject of Jack Eichel, NHL.com's Jackie Spiegel revealed that Stone would be unavailable during camp.

From Spiegel:

Although forward Mark Stone will miss training camp after undergoing back surgery in May, Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said that Eichel won't have the pressure of being the No. 1 guy anymore.

Update: There has been something of a confusing update from Gary Lawless of the Golden Knights following the publication of Spiegel's article.

From Lawless:

Lots of chatter about Mark Stone's avail for training camp and some of it may have gotten twisted.
While VGK has said Stone would be ready for the regular season, that does not mean that he’s expected to miss training camp. Simple miscommunication there.

It is important to note that Lawless isn't overtly refuting Spiegel's report and if anything this seems more like something you would expect in a public relations press release from a team than from a reporter. Lawless' comments appear to indicate that Stone could be at camp, but stop short of saying he will or won't be.

Stay tuned for more on this somewhat strange and developing story.