It was obvious which team was fighting and which team was waiting for it to happen in last night’s game. The Golden Knights, who’ll make the playoffs no matter how uninspired they play, lost the game in the first period where they looked slow and not interested in taking their playoff-clinching opportunity into their own hands. I watched the game live, then forced myself to rewatch the first period to convince myself that Colorado was in fact that much faster in their 4-3 win over the VGK.
Calgary and San Jose are in funks of their own; Calgary lost again last night. The VGK have lost their last three games 0-2-1, earning a single point out of a possible six. They’ve pretty much settled for finishing in third place and, guaranteeing that they won’t have home-ice advantage in either of the first two rounds — unless the wild card upsets Calgary and Vegas can beat San Jose and Martin Jones at least once or twice in San Jose. They’re more than capable of doing that, but not if they play like they did last night.
It was a tough night for most of the VGK players.
Shea Theodore was beaten to the end board for the puck on the relentless forecheck by Tyson Jost and the rest of the Colorado team, which revealed their game plan for the entire night. Jost sent a behind-the-back pass to Matt Calvert in the slot that was left unattended by any of the Vegas backchecking forwards. With no one between Calvert and Malcolm Subban, the VGK backup netminder gave up a goal he couldn’t be faulted for. Trust me, there were a few goals last night that Subban can be faulted for, but the first two scored by the Av’s were not his fault.
Nathan skated circles around Deryk Engelland and scored the second goal that put Vegas in a position to look even slower on the replay of the first period that I tortured myself with while watching it one more time. On MacKinnon’s power-play goal, the shot went by Subban off of Engelland’s stick. To make matters worse, Subban saw neither the shot nor the deflection, as he was completely screened by Colin Wilson. Here’s the video of that.
Colorado’s first eight shots of the first period were answered with one shot by Vegas. The VGK registered zero shots on their first two power-play chances. It wasn’t pretty at all.
With the score 2-0 after the first 20 minutes, the VGK seemed to dismiss the lackluster first period. They came out of the second period showing a little more interest in at least playing 40 minutes of the 60 scheduled minutes. But in a faceoff to the right of Subban, what seemed like a set play, Colorado won the faceoff got the puck back to the point. Right-hand-shooting defenseman Tyson Barrie was put on the left point, which allowed him to slide across the blue line and snap a shot skating forward with more power than if he was coming off of the right boards and skating backwards. And here’s the video of that one. Subban appeared to have a clear sight line on Barrie’s shot, but that goal pushed the lead to 3-0.
It was also the goal that made Jonathan Marchessault see red. He knew he needed to do something to kick some passion into his teammates. He took matters into his own hands by engaging in a tussle with Sven Andrighetto in the corner, taking exception to Sven’s over-aggressiveness. Marchessault, the smallest guy on the team, went ninja on Sven who left the ice bloodied.
This seemed to wake up the Knights who scored the next two goal to close the gap to 3-2. With goals by Paul Stastny and Reilly Smith 3:50 apart, we had ourselves a game. Well, at least it appeared that we did. Just 2:23 seconds after Smith’s goal, Gabriel Bourque scored on a shot that Subban should have saved. It was Bourque’s second goal in the past 50 games and they both happened in March. His other goal was scored into an empty net on March 9.
With the two-goal lead once again established going into the third period, things weren’t looking up for the VGK. Alex Tuch did create some hope when he scored off of a Mark Stone point shot with 3:23 left in the game to once again close the gap to just a one-goal lead. With Subban pulled for the extra skater, Vegas had a little more hope and MacKinnon’s holding-the-stick penalty with just seven seconds left presented a 6-on-4.
In an ironic twist, Marchessault who seem to ignite his team in the second period, had a chance to have a signature game, the kind that could make him a future captain of this team. Marchy had the puck on his stick in front of Philipp Grubauer with the clock approaching zero. The puck was bouncing and wouldn’t settle down and when he launched his shot towards the open net it went just wide. If that goes in Vegas, gets to overtime and earns the one point that they needed to clinch a playoff spot on their own and not via a loss by another team.
Malcolm Subban, who has been amazing at T-Mobile, continues to struggle on the road. He’s 2-9 on the road with a rather inflated 3.48 GAA and a less-than-stellar .890 save percentage.
Vegas had 23 come-from-behind wins last season, but came up short last night on a game they should have had a lot more interest in than they did.
Tough night for both Brayden McNabb and Shea Theodore, who wound up -3.
My 3 Stars of the Game: Nathan MacKinnon (1 goal ,1 assist), Tyson Barrie (1 goal, 2 assists), Jonathan Marchessault (who tried his best to carry the team to a victory on his back)
The fourth star was the line of Karlsson, Smith, and Marchessault. These three continue to produce even in the face of three straight losses. Smith has 10 points in the last six games (5G, 5A), Karlsson has 9 points in the last six games (4G, 5A), and Marchessault has 9 in the last six (4G, 5A).
There is no captain on the VGK as of now, but in my opinion, Jonathan Marchessault’s performance, along with his willingness to speak up and call out himself and his team when it’s needed, is what a team looks for in a captain. Gallant and McPhee have other solid choices if they decide a captain is needed. But trust me when I tell you that 81 will be near the top of the list when that time comes.
The next game is tomorrow night against Minnesota at T-Mobile at 7 p.m.
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In *slight* defense of Subban, that goal by Barrie should have been credited to Av #10, Andrighetto. That was clearly deflected and can be seen easily in that video link in the second and (a little less so) the third angles. The puck changed direction slightly after the shot. Still should have been far enough away for Subban to make the save, but if he was tracking it off Barrie’s stick, I can see why it went behind him.
The NHL isn’t going to take a “record-breaking” goal away, but Barrie should have the assist on that, not the goal.
Another awesome report. Thanks
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