Knights on Ice — Just In The Max Of Time

It’s a good thing hockey games are 60 minutes long, or in tonight’s case, 65 minutes plus a shootout. It took the Vegas Golden Knights more than 58 minutes to get a puck behind Minnesota Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk, who stopped the first 37 shots Vegas launched at him. He eventually stopped 41 of 42 shots before he and the Wild fell to Vegas 2-1 in the shootout.

The line of Max “Patches” Pacioretty, Paul Stastny, and Eric Haula was a dominant force the entire game. Devan Dubnyk foiled them and the entire VGK team for 58 minutes and 29 seconds, until Max’s shot off a pass from Jonathan Marchessault from the half-wall with Fleury pulled for the extra skater finally got by him to tie the game. Patches’ wicked snapshot flew between two Wild players who were closing in on him as he let it go just 20 feet in front of Dubnyk.

The Golden Knights we saw on Thursday night at T-Mobile were nowhere to be found last night in Minnesota. They played the type of game we know they can. Coach Gallant has a knack for not letting his team stray too far from the kind of hockey that gives other teams fits. Unfortunately, Dubnyk was giving them fits for most of the game, but Vegas stayed strong and kept plugging away.

Actually, Vegas was the better team the entire game. The Wild didn’t register a shot on goal for two segments of 12 minutes each. The first segment occurred right after Matt Dumba scored 9:23 into the first period. The second was in the second period.

Marc-Andre Fleuy stopped 29 of the 30 shots he faced. The Wild’s only goal was Dumba’s. There’s an ironic twist to Matt Dumba and his connection to the Vegas Golden Knights. In the expansion draft that formed the VGK, the former GM of the Wild, Cliff Fletcher, worked a deal with George McPhee to take Erik Haula instead of Dumba; to sweeten the deal, the Wild also threw in Alex Tuch, whom McPhee and his staff were very high on. Talk about just how good McPhee’s hockey sense is. This trade turned out to be a steal for Vegas.

Fletcher was certainly aware of it. “We knew we were going to have to give them something of substance to lay off our exposed players,” he said. “We paid a price. They definitely maximized their leverage, which we knew they would.”

So when Dumba’s first-period goal stood up for 58-plus minutes, it looked like keeping Dumba might have been the main reason why the Wild would become the first team to be 4-0 versus Vegas. The Wild beat Vegas all three games last year and last night it appeared their perfect record would remain intact.

That was until Patches tied the game with just over a minute to go. Then Erik Haula, the same guy the Wild gave up to protect Dumba, was the only player out of six in the shootout to score, securing the 2-1 win, giving the VGK the two points, and allowing the Knights to even their record at 1-1.

The last few seconds of the game and the first 1:35 of overtime were anything but a cakewalk. Marchessault was assessed a two-minute tripping penalty with 25 seconds left in the game. Vegas had to kill off the final 25 seconds of regulation time and 1:35 of the overtime.

With nine seconds left in overtime, the Wild took a penalty and with the faceoff deep in the Wild defensive zone, Gallant put out all four forwards in an attempt to win it right there and avoid the shootout with Dubnyk, who of course had been spectacular all night. Vegas cleanly won the faceoff, but in attempting to get the puck back to the point for a shot, it cleared the zone and we were on to the shootout.

In another twist that might have slipped unnoticed by many, Gallant chose Karlsson, Marchessault, and Haula as his three shooters. Why didn’t he use all three players from the second line who’d buzzed all over the ice for 65 minutes? Gallant is loyal to his players and he selected three who were instrumental in their overall success last year. That’s why Turk is known as a player’s coach. Don’t get me wrong, Stastny and Patches wouldn’t have been a bad choice, but his loyalty choice makes a lot of sense.

My 3 Stars of the Game: Max “Patches” Pacioretty, Erik Haula, Devan Dubnyk

The VGK travel to Buffalo to play the Sabers tomorrow at 12 noon Pacific Time.

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