“Too soft, too slow, and too much room,” said coach Gerard Gallant when he was asked in his post-game presser how the Philadelphia Flyers not only won the game 5-2, but dominated his team for the final 50 minutes in front of a crowd of 18,555 at T-Mobile Arena.
Yes, the VGK did feed off the energy of the crowd that, for the most part, consisted of local hometown fans. Unlike last year where the visiting teams had a noticeable presence at T-Mobile, there was a very small visiting-team presence. But not even 18,000-plus VGK fans who witnessed the banner unveiling of the Pacific Division and Western Conference championships could energize the team past the first 10 minutes of the first period.
Shea Theodore rang a slap shot off both posts, then it somehow bounced back out onto the ice at the 3:30 mark of the first. Jonathan Marchessault scored three minutes after that. But the game went downhill from there for the Knights.
Things were so bad that Mark-André Fleury was pulled from the game at the 10:10 mark of the second period after surrendering five goals on just 16 shots. Fleury was only pulled twice in the entire 2017-2018 season.
You know the team played badly when Fleury wound up in a four-way tie for the team lead in scoring. The goalie picked up an assist on Marchy’s opening goal. Marchessault and Bellemare had one goal each and Jon Merrill and Fleury each had an assist on Marchy’s goal.
Philadelphia slipped or tipped in five goals on Fleury, in between the opening Vegas goal and the last goal scored, which may have been the only VGK highlight of the night. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored a shorthanded goal when he slipped around the last defenseman with a nifty move and found himself face to face with Flyer goaltender Brian Elliot, who stopped 23 of the 25 shots he faced, but this shot did get by him.
Malcolm Subban replaced Fleury, then stopped all nine shots he faced in the 29:41 minutes he played.
The Knights were 0-3 on the power play and even with a two-man advantage for 1:17, they moved the puck around tape to tape, but never really got off a shot that challenged Elliot. To make matters worse, less than a minute after their two-man advantage evaporated, Erik Haula took his second penalty of the night for holding. Haula also took a penalty 1:33 into the second period, which resulted in Wayne Simmonds’ second goal of the night, putting Vegas behind 3-1 just 2:58 into the second period. Vegas never recovered from this goal and it turned out to be the winning goal of the game.
Getting beat by a power-play goal is never a good thing, but when your own power play goes 0-3, that makes it sting even more.
The Knights couldn’t establish a forecheck, except for one shift when Reaves was pressuring the Flyer defense. Forced to clear the puck by the pressure, the clearing pass was picked up by Fleury, who slid it over to Jon Merrill, who sent a nice stretch pass to Marchessault, waiting over 100 feet away in the neutral zone. Marchy swooped in and beat Elliot with a wicked snap shot over his right shoulder.
It was a nice pass from Merrill, who otherwise had a tough night. His pinch on the left wall caught him flat-footed and deep in the offensive zone, leaving his partner Nick Holden to face an odd-man rush, which resulted in the Flyer’s first goal by Oskar Lindblom. The original shot by Oskar appeared like it was going to go through the crease and not enter the net, but Holden’s skate inadvertently knocked the puck in.
On the next Flyer goal, VGK Oscar Lindberg was in a tough spot along the half-wall on his backhand and his clearing pass wasn’t strong enough to clear the zone. It was kept in by Robert Hagg, who shot it on net and it slipped under Fleury’s pad. Oscar Lindberg appeared to save the goal from going in with his stick, only to see Wayne Simmonds crash the net and poke the loose puck past Fleury, who was prone on the ice.
It was a stinker by the entire team for the most part. Last year, in all of their 102 games, the Knights rarely had a game this disappointing performance wise.
This is a good team that just wasn’t ready for the game. But don’t despair; there’s still plenty of hockey to go — 81 games to be exact. It may be a blessing that the team heads out on the road for the next five games. No better way to get away from distractions and focus on correcting a very unKnight-like game that we unfortunately had to sit through. Gallant will prepare the team for their next challenge, a team they lost to last year three times in three attempts.
My 3 Stars of the Game: The crowd who never gave up and tried to inspire the team till the very end; Jonathan Marchessault, who played all 200 feet for his 18:53 time on ice, no matter what the score; and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, who always gives 100%.
Next game: Tomorrow night vs. Minnesota on the road, 5 p.m. Pacific Time.
Next home game is at T-Mobile on Tuesday Oct. 16 vs. Buffalo at 7 p.m. Pacific Time.
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