In a game that featured two of the highest scoring teams in the league, combined with a team that has given up a lot of goals against, the last score you’d think you’d see would be 2-1. But that was the final score of last night’s game, as the NY Islanders, who seem to always be involved in 6-5 and even 7-5 games, decided to play defense. The first shot on net didn’t happen for 3-1/2 minutes and the VGK didn’t have a shot on net until almost seven minutes into the first period.
The Islanders also put their bodies in front of just about everything they could, blocking 20 VGK shots of the 59 attempted shots on net. Islander goalie Jaroslav Halak was outstanding. This season Halak has a Goals Against Average of 3.23 and has given up 37 goals in his last 10 starts, but last night, he looked like a completely different goalie than his previous starts.
The VGK had a 12-game home point streak coming in, which was an NHL best so far this season, and they hadn’t lost at home in regulation in almost two months. Their last home loss was on Nov 28th vs. Dallas. That had to end and with last night’s loss, combined with Tampa Bay winning, the VGK are no longer the number-one team in the NHL. They do remain at the top of the Western Conference.
Fleury, who has been stellar in nets since his return from his concussion, was once again brilliant in the nest, yielding only two goals. The first goal was actually put in off of Cody Eakin’s stick when an intended pass across the crease was inadvertently deflected in while Eakin was attempting to block the pass. The second and winning goal was off a giveaway from Colin Miller, who lost the puck while skating out from behind his own net.
Fleury actually leads all NHL goaltenders this season with a 1.75 Goals Against Average and .944 save percentage. After seeing Fleury play in a pre-season game at T-Mobile, a friend of mine wanted to know, “What’s so special about him?” I wonder what she’s saying now.
The VGK power play, which has seen its share of struggles this season, seems to be coming alive. They’ve scored for power-play goals in the last seven attempts and tonight’s only goal to beat Halak was on the power play.
John Tavares, who will be the most sought-after free agent in many years when this June rolls around, was a non-factor; he only had one shot on net and was pretty much invisible the entire game. With that, and Fleury giving up only two goals against a team that surrenders 3.65 goals per game, this was a game you’d expect to win.
The Eakin, Tuch, and Leipsic line created a ton of chances and were the best line for the VGK. Coach Gallant recognized that and rewarded them with extra ice time, especially in the closing minutes of the game.
Four different VGK defensive players are injured: Brayden McNabb, Jon Merrill, Luca Sbisa, and Tomas Nosek. With this many injuries at the same position, you’d think that a player called up to fill this void would have little or no NHL time. But the Knights are very deep in defense. So when Jason Garrison was called up and inserted into the lineup, he brought tons of NHL experience with him. Jason has 534 games under his belt during his time in the NHL. Jason actually played in the first four games for the Knights before being assigned to their Chicago affiliate.
Last night’s low-scoring game was surprising, because four of the top 10 goal scorers were in the lineup for both teams: James Neal with 22, John Tavares with 26, William Karlsson and Anders Lee with 27, and Alex Ovechkin with 30; he leads the league.
Jonathan Marchessault’s four-game point streak with points in 7 of 8 games was snapped, as was James Neal’s 4 game goal streak.
The entire NHL is on the All-Star Break starting tomorrow, as 30 of the 31 teams were in action tonight.
The VGK’s next game is on the road Tuesday Jan. 30 against Calgary at 6 p.m. Pacific Time. It will start a six-game road trip; the team won’t return to T-Mobile until they play the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday Feb 11.
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Whoever wrote this article needs to proof read or get “spell check”. I would be embarrasses to put something like this out for public consumption. The Knights seem to be a class organization so far and they should be represented by class writers as well. Just saying…….
The fault was in the editing. There were a few problems that are fixed now. Thanks for the pointing it out to us.
Remember that this is a blog, so we’re a lot less rigid with editing, even letting the writers go unedited on many occasions. And I thought a while before saying this, but I’d think that someone who took it upon himself to criticize in this direct manner would be really careful about following his own advice.
Yes. It’s embarassesing to make an editing error while criticizing someone else’s editing.
That aside, when did Joe ever claim to be “representing” the VGK?