Normally, my posts are about hockey. But last night at T-Mobile, it was AYCE sushi. Actually, there was only one menu item — Shark. And it was chopped up and consumed early and often by the Vegas Golden Knights.
The VGK feasted on the San Jose Sharks in the first game of the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Even before all the invited guests were seated, the buffet began and the defensive battle that the pundits expected never materialized. Instead, there was blood in the water. Under normal conditions, sharks are most dangerous when the sea is red. Tonight, however, the blood was streaming from the Sharks themselves, who were netted, harpooned, and hung by their tails in front of the 18,000-plus fans.
The building started rocking from the last note of the national anthem and it never stopped, as the SS Gallant and its crew of 20 made its way over the frozen waters of T-Mobile. Even though the crew had been off for eight days, the captain and his sailors made the Sharks look like guppies. Their speed on the game’s first two shifts spelled trouble for the Sharks, who seemed like fish out of water. To mix the metaphor, Vegas beat San Jose by a whopping 7-0.
In the first round of the playoffs, both the Sharks and Knights quickly disposed of their opponents. San Jose surrendered only four in their four-game sweep of Anaheim; Vegas allowed only three, as Marc Andre Fleury had two shutouts in their own four-game sweep.
One has to assume that the San Jose scouts were well aware of the L.A. Kings’ game plan: trying to force Vegas away from their speed and into playing a defensive game, and that it failed miserably as Fleury stopped almost everything L.A. could fire at him. I figure that when they combined the Kings’ loss with their own domination in the first round, they believed they could afford to play speed vs. speed and trust that their goaltender, Martin Jones, would keep up his torrid pace of stopping pucks.
Fair enough. There’s only one problem with that plan. Vegas’ speed had been giving its opponents problems for the past 86 games. After last night’s game, you can make that 87.
Actually, there are two problems. The second is that this is a complete team effort. In Round 1, the VGK scored seven goals in the four games and all seven were scored by different players. Last night, they scored seven goals in the first game alone and guess what. All seven goals, again, were scored by seven different players.
Unbelievable.
That said, make no mistake about it: The superstar of this team is Fleury. With last night’s thrashing of the Sharks, Fleury recorded his third shutout in the first five games of this year’s playoffs. The last time that happened was 14 years ago, by Nikolai Khabibulin (Tampa Bay) and Ed Belfour (Toronto). Keep in mind, established teams were playing in front of these goaltenders back in 2004. The expansion team in front of Fleury was put together less than a year ago. Last night’s shutout was Fleury’s 13th in postseason play. It was also his 67th playoff win.
In the first five games of the playoffs, Fleury has a Goals Against Average of 0.54 and a save percentage of .982.
Astonishing.
San Jose’s Martin Jones was replaced after Shea Theodore’s goal, early in the second period, brought the score to 5-0. Jones gave up four goals on the first seven shots he faced and ended the night early, surrendering five goals on just 13 shots. Aaron Dell replaced Jones and made 19 saves on the 21 shots he faced.
San Jose had a respectable 17 shots on Fleury in the first period, but could only muster eight in the second and eight in the third. They were demoralized and it showed as the game dragged on for them. They were additionally frustrated, giving Vegas 10 power-play chances.
The real letdown came in the third period when Evander Kane took a five-minute major for cross-checking Pierre-Edouard Bellemare across the face long after the whistle had blown and a scrum ensued. Kane was more than 30 feet away from the scrum and skated directly to Bellemare, who had his back turned to Kane. It was clearly a dirty play that may in fact earn him a seat in the press box for the next game or two. Kane was acquired at the trade deadline to add offense and with last night’s total lack thereof, losing him to a needless penalty can only be more bad news for San Jose.
Vegas’ speed led to three goals within 1:31 as Cody Eakin scored at 4:31, followed by Erik Haula at 4:57, and Jonathan Marchessault at 6:02. Alex Tuch closed the scoring in the first period when he exploded through four San Jose players who tried to stand him up at the blue line. It was the first of the three PP goals Vegas scored on their 10 chances.
Shea Theodore added the fifth goal that chased Jones. Colin Miller and James Neal added power-play goals of their own in the third period while Kane sat out his five minutes. Unlike a normal two-minute penalty that ends when a team scores a power-play goal, with a five-minute major, the team remains on the power play the entire time.
Sometimes shots registered can be a telling statistic as to which team controlled the flow of the game. Last night, the shot totals ended up 34-33 in favor of Vegas. One might assume that SJ was competitive in this game. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Sharks were done at the “Star-Spangled Banner.” The crowd played a major factor in making sure there was no letdown when the score became 4-0. They were engaged the entire 60 minutes and had a well-organized wave going through the crowd. I personally saw this and couldn’t believe my eyes when Marc Andre Fleury actually joined in on the wave while play was in action at the other end. If you don’t think this team is loose, you’re not paying attention.
Coach Gallant has said that when he was a player in the NHL, he enjoyed playing for a coach who left him alone and let him play without too much interaction. So I asked him how much of that coaching philosophy he uses with this team.
“For the most part, I let them play their game. When they don’t play their game, that’s when we have issues. Our guys come to the rink every day and are prepared to play. Let’s go play our game. Our game is pretty simple. We know how we play our game. We play fast, we play quick, we play direct hockey. So far it’s working for us.”
This is the best sports story in the U.S. in years. It’s for sure the best sports story that has ever happened to Las Vegas. It has just about every hockey pundit baffled. No one knows where it will end, but I’ll tell you this. I’m happy to be part of it and thrilled to share my thoughts and opinions with you. Feel free to add your comments.
Game 2 is tomorrow night at T-Mobile at 5 p.m.
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History Lesson: In 1995, my Sharks lost a Game 1 to Calgary by a score of 9-2. The Sharks then went on to win that series.
This is far from over.