To be magnanimous, one is generous in forgiving, free from resentfulness or vindictiveness. Last night, the Vegas Golden Knights, in particular Nate Schmidt and Ryan Reaves, offered none of that. Actually, they went out of their way to avoid such behavior. In fact, blood, sweat, and tears marked the Stanley Cup rematch that the VGK won 5-3, thereby avenging their Game 5 defeat of 4-3 on June 7, 2018, to the Washington Capitals.
Last night, the score was exactly 4-3 in favor of the VGK after former Washington Capital Nate Schmidt scored a power-play goal with just 1:25 left in the game to break a 3-3 tie. The power play occurred when Nic Dowd was assessed a four-minute double-minor for high-sticking Brayden McNabb, who left the ice with blood dripping from his face.
Schmidty made sure that no one even considered him forgiving of the Caps for exposing him in the expansion draft when he added an empty-net goal with just seven seconds left in the game. They were Nate’s first two goals of the season and they couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Would’ve been cooler if it was last year, but still cool nonetheless,” Nate said after the game, referring to Game 5 in the Final.
This game was intense from the opening faceoff. Coach Gallant rarely matches up lines and almost always opens the game with his top line. But last night was different and it set the tone that carried through all 60 minutes.
When Capitals coach Todd Reirden announced his starting line of Ovechkin, Backstrom, and bad boy Tom Wilson, Gallant countered with the crunch line of Bellemare, Carrier, and Reaves. Both Carrier and Ryan Reaves lead the entire NHL in total hits. So the stage was set and the sold-out crowd of 18,275 weren’t disappointed: The game had 81 hits between the two teams that have grown not to like each other. Vegas had 20 hits in the first period alone, winding up with 41 of the 81.
Some of the hits were bone-wrenching. Others were so big that when Ryan Reaves ran into Wilson at the 15:42 mark of the second period, Wilson’s helmet popped off like the cork from a champagne bottle at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Revo received a five-minute major for interference and a game misconduct. It was a shoulder-to-shoulder hit just after Wilson released the puck; it might have been a little late, warranting a two-minute minor, similar to the penalty Wilson received for a questionable hit on Marchessault in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. Wilson didn’t return to the game after the hit. And it appeared that the Capital’s coach Reirden shouted some expletives at his counterpart Gallant.
Post-game, after his emotions were somewhat in check, Reirden said, “It’s a rivalry and there’s a good battle there, but Reaves targeted [Wilson] the entire game. You could hear it on every faceoff, the things that were being said. It was a blind-side hit where an unsuspecting player hit his head on the ice. That’s disappointing. You can put two and two together and figure that out from there.”
Wilson and Reaves had already come together multiple times, dishing out big booming hits on each other, before Revo was sent to the showers early. Wilson wound up on his butt twice on the same shift late in the first period and you just knew something was about to pop. The helmet wasn’t what I’d envisioned.
Wilson has been suspended multiple times for injuring players with dirty hits and last night, he received a little of his own medicine. Reaves’ hit was nowhere near the kind that Wilson has delivered many times in his career, including one just the other night against the New Jersey Devils for which he received a game misconduct, but no additional punishment from the Department of Player Safety. I believe Reaves won’t hear from DPS for his hit last night either.
Reaves said, “[Wilson] ran into a lion in the jungle. I thought he saw me. I thought he took a peek. If he sees me, I know he’s going to try and lay me out and I’m not going to let that happen. I thought it was shoulder to shoulder and didn’t think it was that late.”
Vegas killed off Reaves’ five-minute power play and in my opinion, that changed the momentum of the game. Emerging unscathed from long power plays will do that, juicing up the team and further inciting the home crowd, who were already engaged in this emotional game. The Caps managed only one shot on goal in the 4:18 seconds left in the second period when Reaves was ejected. Washington did register an additional shot in the final 42 seconds of the major penalty that carried over to the third period, but came up empty.
Entering the third period with a lead, Washington had a record of 12-2-0, while Vegas’ was 1-11-0 when trailing going into the third.
Washington has the sixth best power play in the league, but the VGK are number one for killing penalties on home ice. Vegas has surrender only three power-play goals on 37 shorthanded situations in 12 games at T-Mobile. Last night, that played a key role in the final outcome.
Washington hasn’t won a regular-season game at T-Mobile and actually lost both games against Vegas home and away last season. They did win their only regular-season game in their brief history vs. Vegas on Oct. 10, 2018, by a score of 5-2 in Washington.
Playing 82 games makes for a long season and trying to be motivated for all of them is just not a reality. All wins are good, but especially those you’ve circled on your calendar, that get your juices flowing. Last night, all skaters and coaches were juiced up.
Even Oscar Lindberg, who had played in a mere eight games this season, was inserted in the lineup, replacing Max Pacioretty who left practice early on Monday at City National Arena. Max was a scratch for last night’s game and Lindberg took advantage of a golden opportunity. Added to the line with Tuch and Eakin, which has been number one in contributions to the offense recently, Oscar didn’t disappoint. He earned his first two points of the season with an assist on Reaves’ opening power-play goal, his sixth of the season, along with an assist on Cody Eakin’s goal. Eakin now leads the team with 11; that score regained the lead 16 seconds after Bellemare tied it up early in the third period. Along with Nate Schmidt, Cody Eakin also played for Washington (2011-12).
Washington tied the score again at 3-3 when Jakub Vrana scored his second goal of the game at the 11:40 mark of the third. Ovechkin was the other goal scorer for the Caps when he scored to give Washington a 2-1 lead with a nifty backhand that caught Fleury off guard. Brett Connolly’s slap shot from the point was wide to the left of Fleury, who was up against the left post. When the wide shot bounced out to the other side of the net, Ovechkin had an open net as Fleury was still on the left post. Even with the open net and Fleury scrambling back to try to beat Ovi to the opposite post, he had a difficult shot. He got off an accurate backhander that beat Fleury, who just was a tad late to the right post.
A rare penalty was called in last night’s game when Evgeny Kuznetsov was called for playing with illegal equipment. In a bizarre play, Nick Holden’s stick got wedged between two panels of the glass; Holden attempted to pull it out, but was unsuccessful. When Kuznetsov lost his stick a few seconds later, instead of retrieving his own stick, he wrenched out Holden’s stick. When he played the puck with Holden’s stick, he was immediately issued a two-minute minor penalty.
According to the rules: “A player will be penalized if he throws, tosses, slides or shoots a stick to a teammate on the ice, or if he picks up and plays with an opponent’s stick.”
With Cody Eakin’s two points tonight, he now has 200 career points. William Karlsson’s four-game goal-scoring streak was snapped last night. It was the first two-goal game in Nate Schmidt’s career.
It’s really a shame that the Knights and Caps play only twice a year (in the regular season), as this is the kind of hockey that motivates the players and juices up the fans.
My 3 Stars of the Game: Nate Schmidt (2 goals, including the power-play game winner), Cody Eakin (1goal, 1 assist), Ryan Reaves (1 power-play goal and a physical force even if it was for just two periods)
Next game is Thursday Dec 6 vs. Chicago at 7 p.m.
Your comments and opinions are welcome here at Las Vegas Advisor or you can contact me directly at [email protected]
And for the most comprehensive coverage of the Vegas Golden Knights’ historic inaugural season, take a look at our book Vegas Golden Knights—How a First-Year Expansion Team Healed Las Vegas and Shocked the Hockey World.
And here are links to some videos from the locker room post-game:
Nate Schmidt Part I and Part II
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Comment from a reader
I’ve watched sports for 50 plus years and 75 is one year the greatest interviews I’ve ever seen. Great work on your part with the set-up
Comments from a reader
“Nobody likes getting run over and laughed at!” Bahahahaha!! Love you RR