Knights on Ice—Subb-Par Performance

The VGK have now lost four games in a row (0-3-1), losing to the Minnesota Wild last night by a score of 3-2 at T-Mobile in front of a sold-out crowd of 18,492. Vegas previously had won 10 of their last 11 games and seemed poised to pass the San Jose Sharks, who have lost their last seven games (0-6-1).

But it seems neither San Jose nor Vegas is interested in having home-ice advantage in the first round. Vegas trails San Jose by 5 points, 95 to 90, with just four games remaining in the VGK schedule. A daunting task, to say the least.

The Knights left Las Vegas immediately following last night’s game. They close out their season series with San Jose today in an almost-certain first-round matchup that seems likely to open up in San Jose. If this series goes seven games, the VGK will regret not taking advantage of the gift that San Jose was attempting to give them, as the Sharks are in a funk of their own right now.

Malcolm Subban’s subb-par performance last night was the second game in a row that was less than memorable for him and most likely is crushing to his confidence going forward. The first Minnesota goal came early in the first period from an unlikely source: Greg Pateryn, a defenseman who in 75 games this season had scored zero goals; in his 242 career NHL games, he’s scored only three goals total. That works out to be a goal every 79 games or one goal per season pretty much.

Pateryn, who rarely ventures any deeper than the opposing team’s blue line, picked up the puck in the neutral zone and skated deep into the VGK defensive zone. Pateryn actually wound up with his stick and the puck behind the goal line to Subban’s left (watch the video).

This is a goal that Subban needed to stop. From an impossible angle, Pateryn fired the puck at Subban, who had two choices. He either faced the shooter and put his left pad flush up against the post or he positioned himself deep in the net, which allowed the bad-angle shot to just go across the net without hitting him or any of his equipment. He did neither. The puck hit the inside of his pad and deflected into the net.

It was a goal that should never have been scored. The first problem was that no one picked up Pateryn as he skated untouched deep into the Vegas zone. The second was Subban’s positioning. I can unequivocally say that with Fleury in the net, this goal never gets past him.

Early- and late-period goals can be back-breakers that are hard to recover from. To further complicate matters, Deryk Engelland was assessed a tripping penalty with just 42 seconds left in the first period and 20 seconds later, Eric Staal scored a power-play goal for a 2-0 Minnesota lead they would never relinquish.

In the second period, Brayden McNabb was also issued a tripping penalty. Vegas is the third least penalized team in the entire NHL, averaging a mere seven minutes for an entire game. When Kevin Flala scored on the power play for a 3-0 lead, the likelihood of Vegas clinching a playoff spot on their own seemed out of the question.

Minnesota has never lost to Las Vegas in regulation. They’ve beaten Vegas five times out of six, only losing to Vegas in a shootout last October 6 by a score of 2-1. The Knights have never scored more than two goals against Minnesota in franchise history. So when Minnesota went up 3-0, it killed any thought of celebrating for making the playoffs for the second straight year and becoming only the seventh team in 101 years to make the playoffs in their first two years of existence.

The seventh team isn’t a fair number; it’s inflated. When the NHL expanded from 12 teams from the original six, all six of the new expansion teams were put in the same division, which guaranteed that four would make the playoffs in their first year. The following year, in a division of six, four teams were guaranteed to return to the playoffs and two of the new teams repeated in making the playoffs two years in a row. The VGK accomplishing this now is kind of special, as they’re in a division of eight and only three from the Pacific will qualify, not counting wildcard spots.

To their credit, the Knights clawed and scratched their way back into this game, all on the shoulders of Paul Stastny who scored both VGK goals. His first came at the end of a power play with just two minutes to go in the second period to trim the 3-0 to 3-1. Paulie “Walnuts” scored his second goal of the game at the 8:52 mark of the second period and all of a sudden, we had a contest.

I will say this: In all of the VGK’s previous 77 games this season, I’ve never seen their power play move the puck around and dominate like it did during their two power plays last night. Still, they didn’t score a PPG, as Stastny’s first goal came just four seconds after the power play expired.

The same precise puck movement also happened when Vegas was on their second power-play opportunity 5:29 into the third period. But no PPG goals were scored by Vegas and their reliable penalty-killing unit surrendered two PPG to Minnesota. It should be noted that Pierre-Édouard Bellemare, who is on the penalty-killing unit, was scratched for an undisclosed injury.

Speaking of injuries, with which Vegas has been plagued the entire season, I would venture to say that other than the Haula injury, the VGK are doing the famous “rope-a-dope” that Muhammed Ali made famous. They’re systematically resting players for the playoffs and it’s a smart move. They witnessed firsthand what a grind it is trying to win 16 games over four different playoff matchups that allow you to hold and lift the most coveted trophy in sports.

Mainly, Fleury is the key component to this rope-a-dope. I believe he could play if really needed, but third place is almost a certainty and Fleury has already played in 59 of the first 77 games. He hasn’t played in the last seven games and mostly likely won’t until the last two or three games of the season. That should be enough time for him to get his timing back before the playoffs start.

Vegas made a desperate push in the last two minutes of the game with Subban pulled for an extra skater, but Devan Dubnyk, the Wild goaltender, was up to the task and shut down the VGK, stopping 33 of the 35 shots he faced for the well-deserved 3-2 victory that keeps Minnesota’s playoff chances alive. Subban faced only five shots in the final period, as Minnesota went into their typical shutdown defense and had very little interest in creating new scoring chances.

The good news is this. Despite losing the game, the Golden Knights did qualify for the playoffs when Arizona lost in OT last night.

Max Pacioretty returned to the lineup since being injured on March 21^st.

My 3 Stars of the Game: Eric Staal (1 goal, a PPG, 1 assist, and 6 shots on net), Paul Stastny (2 goals on 3 shots), the VGK power-play unit that moved the puck around and passed it with precision from tape to tape).

The next game is today vs. San Jose at 6 p.m.

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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.

Here are the post-game videos:

Paul Statsny Part 1 and Part 2

Mark Stone

Coach Gallant Part 1 and Part 2