Knights on Ice — VGK Special Teams Blow a Gasket in Motor City

The VGK arrived in Detroit with a chance to conclude their road trip like a fine-tuned Ferrari engine. A win yesterday would have closed this 4-game road trip by winning 3 of the 4 games and 6 of their last 7, all while playing with a depleted lineup.

But they blew a gasket, especially on their penalty-kill and power-play units, propelling Detroit to a 5-2 win.

Detroit scored 2 power-play goals in the first period on just 2 shots and 3 goals in the first period on just 7 shots. Detroit’s coach knew that his special-team’s performance had a direct effect on the results of the game. “Obviously,” he said, “special teams were a huge factor tonight. We won this one with special teams and great goaltending.”

Thomas Greiss, the Red Wing’s goaltender, stopped 34 of the 36 shots he faced. He was spectacular in the 3rd period, saving 19 of 20. The only one he didn’t stop was Jonathan Marchessault’s, who has had a hot stick, especially in these last 3 games, scoring 4 goals. His goal 4:25 into the 3rd period was as close as Vegas would get.

Marchessault’s 6th of the season moved him to the most goals scored for Vegas with 98. He passed William Karlsson who has 97 goals as a VGK. Marchessault has played in 292 games as a VGK, while Karlsson has played in 291.

But the real demise for the VGK yesterday was their own special teams. Detroit has given up the 2nd most power play goals among the 32 teams. Yet Vegas, who had 3 power plays could manage all of 2 shots in the 6 minutes and came up empty. After the game in Montreal where they scored 2 PPG on just 2 shots, there was a glimmer of hope that maybe they’d turned the corner on their scoreless power play that we suffered through for the first 10 games of the season. But that didn’t happen against a team that’s been weak on their penalty kill so far this season.

The other side of the special-team debacle was the VGK penalty kill, at which they’ve been good for the last 4 years. With the 2 PPG in the first period, even though the VGK outshot Detroit 13-7, Vegas left the ice after the first 20 minutes trailing 3-1.

Detroit had 4 goals against Laurent Brossoit on just 15 shots. Brossoit came into yesterday’s game with a record of 3-0 against Detroit and a save percentage of .963. He ended the game yesterday stopping 25 of the 29 shots he faced, which made for a disappointing save % of .862.

On this road trip, Vegas was outscored in the first periods 6-1 and was -33 in shots before yesterday’s game. Yet they wound up winning 2 games in Ottawa and Montreal with strong 2nd periods. The Red Wings held Vegas scoreless in the 2nd period and added 1 goal of their own to increase their lead to 4-1 entering the 3rd. Nic Roy opened the scoring for the VGK just 3:48 into the game, but Vegas couldn’t beat Greiss again until Marchessault’s goal in the 3rd period.

Coach DeBoer pulled Brossoit for an extra skater with 4:08 left in the game. That’s aggressive, but being down 2 goals with not much happening offensively, it seemed to be the right call and it was. For basically the entire 4 minutes, Vegas had the puck in the Detroit zone and when they didn’t possess the puck, Chandler Stephenson won faceoff after faceoff to the right of Greiss. Still, they couldn’t get anything past him. Bertuzzi scored an empty-net goal with 11 seconds left for the 5-2 final. It was his ninth goal of the season.

Other game Notes. Thomas Greiss was Robin Lehner’s goaltending partner when they both played for the NY Islanders; he also won the Jennings Trophy for the least number of goals given up during the 2018-19 season. They gave up 180 goals in 82 games for a GAA of 2.20. Last season, the combination of Fleury and Lehner, who won the Jennings trophy last year, gave up 115 goals in 56 games for a GAA of 2.06

The Golden Knights recorded a 40-30 advantage on shots, but Greiss made a season-high-tying 38 saves to secure his fourth win of the season.

Vegas scored the first goal yesterday which has been a good omen for them looking back. Last year, scoring the first goal in a game resulted in them losing only 3 games. This year, they’ve already lost 4 games when scoring first.

Jack Eichel arrived in Las Vegas yesterday and is scheduled to have the surgery he was holding out for, that Buffalo would not allow, on Friday Nov 12th. Expected time of a full recovery is up to 4 months. But before Eichel can be added to the roster, a few contracts will have to disappear if the team is fully healthy by then. With Eichel, they’re $10 million over the $81.5 million cap.

My 3 Stars of the Game: The Detroit power play unit (which seemed to have the puck on a sting, scoring 2 goals on just 2 shots), Nicolas Roy (1G, 1A and 7 SOG in just under 20 minutes of ice time), Chandler Stephenson (won every faceoff in the last 4:00 minutes of the game, giving Vegas a chance at a comeback with Brossoit on the bench for the extra skater)

Next game is tomorrow at T-Mobile vs. Seattle at 7 p.m. Pacific Time

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Nicholas Roy’s opening goal

Raymond scores the first PPG for Detroit