Bad breaks happen; they’re part of playing sports. But recently the VGK seem to be on the wrong side of everything that could possibly go wrong. Last night they kissed away another valuable point away to their division rival L.A. Kings in their 4-3 loss at T-Mobile.
Just like Saturday’s game against Montreal, this one went to overtime. Again last night, the Knights were dominating OT play, moving the puck around the L.A. zone like they owned it. They had four high-quality scoring chances, while L.A. didn’t register a shot on Fleury until Tyler Toffoli beat him on a breakaway 1:39 in. It was the Kings’ only shot in OT and it was Toffoli’s first goal in 19 games.
In Saturday’s game, they were beat when Phillip Danault, who had two goals in 36 previous games, scored a hat trick. Also on Saturday, in which Vegas dominated OT, Alex Tuch lost defensive assignment, allowing Paul Byron to beat him to the front of the net; Byron slipped the puck between Fleury’s pads for the overtime winner. Last night, the winning goal came about because of an ill-timed line change by Nate Schmidt.
Especially in these last two home games, the VGK have looked tired and might not be as focused as Coach Gallant expects. Even though their six-game home winning streak was snapped on Saturday, last night’s game extended their home point streak to eight games, with the two points earned in their back-to-back OT losses.
“The way we played the last six periods, we were lucky to get two points. We didn’t play well enough to deserve them. Our goalie was our best player in the two games and that’s why we got the two points,” Gallant said after the game. “Am I happy to get the two points? Yes, I am. But again, we’ve got to play a lot better than that.”
Asked if he’s also happy for the holiday break, he said, “Big time. We’ve played a lot of hockey. We had a lot of travel and I’m sure the guys are tired. So it’s great that they have three days off and we’ll get back at it after Christmas.”
Gallant attempted to shake things up a little last night, trying to get the attention of his team. He reunited the line of Marchessault, Karlsson, and Smith and not long after doing so, Marchessault fed Smith with a perfect cross-ice pass. Reilly snapped a wicked wrist shot past L.A. Kings’ backup goaltender Cal Petersen. That goal regained the lead for the VGK after Michael Amadio tied the score just 3:32 into the second period.
Tomas Nosek opened the scoring on a bouncing puck that somehow bounced up and over Petersen at the 10:10 mark of the first period for the one-goal lead that Vegas took into the second, which ended tied at 2-2 when Alex Iafallo scored 2:51 after Smith had given Vegas a 2-1 lead.
The way the Kings were playing, entering the third the Knights were lucky to be tied at 2-2. Jeff Carter scored just 2:06 into the period to regain the lead that both teams traded back and forth.
When Adrian Kempe took the only penalty the Kings were called for at 5:29, Ryan Reaves made the most of his 24 seconds of power-play time. Revo tipped a point shot by Nate Schmidt past Petersen to tie the score at 3-3. It remained there until the final buzzer of regulation.
It was Reaves’ seventh goal of the season. By NHL standards, it was a greasy dirty goal that takes a lot of courage to perform. Standing in front of slap shots that can reach up to 100 mph is not for the faint of heart. But for Revo, it’s part of his style of play. He even does this drill as practice is winding down. He and William Carrier take turns standing in front of Subban while the VGK defense take slap shots on the net, which Reaves and Carrier attempt to tip past Subban. On Friday, one of Brad Hunt’s slap shots brought Reaves down to the ice where he remained for a while. He eventually got up and skated immediately to the locker room. When I went into the locker room a few minutes later, you would never have never known he left the ice doubled over in some sort of discomfort a few minutes earlier. Revo is one tough guy.
Fleury is on pace to record the most games he’s ever played in a season. At some point, he’ll need to be given a few days off. These three days aren’t much, but I bet they looked like a tropical paradise to him as he drove home to Summerlin last night — disappointed once again, as you can see in the attached video.
Getting away from the ice and the daily grind will be a good thing for Fleury and the rest of the players, but as I pointed out in yesterday’s post, it’s only three days, as opposed to the four or five days off for a number of teams.
Vegas still sits in third place in the Pacific and did have a chance to pick up ground on San Jose, which also lost last night in OT. Let’s hope come April, we’re not in need of these two points that were left on the table.
After the game last night, Brandon Pirri was reassigned to the Chicago Wolves. Two things could be made of this. One, Max Pacioretty will be ready to return to the lineup on Thursday. Two, sending him down protects him from having to clear waivers if he plays 10 games or is on the active roster for a total of 30 days. If Max isn’t ready to return by Thursday, Pirri will most likely be recalled and the team saves three days of the 30-day limit. We’ll know the reason on Thursday.
My 3 Stars of the Game: Ryan Reaves (PPG to get the game into OT and salvage a point), Marc-Andre Fleury (another strong performance and as Gallant said, their best player in the last two games), and Tyler Toffoli (OT game-winning goal).
Vegas is back on the ice Thursday Dec. 27 at T-Mobile against Colorado at 7 p.m.
Merry Christmas, everyone. Enjoy this valuable time with your family and friends and be safe.
Your comments and opinions are welcome here at Las Vegas Advisor or you can contact me directly at [email protected] or at my Facebook Page…… Vegas Hockey Guy
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.
Also, here’s a link to a video that I put together based on the “12 Days of Christmas.” I asked 12 players the following question, “If you had to give one Christmas gift to one teammate, what would it be?” The responses show a lot about the personalities of: Marc-Andre Fleury, Shea Theodore, Alex Tuch, Pierre Edouard Bellemare, Brayden McNabb, Malcolm Subban, Oscar Lindberg, Brad Hunt, Jon Merrill, William “Wild Bill” Karlsson, Ryan Reeves, and Jonathan Marchessault.
And here are the links to my post-game interviews:
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