Last night, the Anaheim Ducks made a conscious effort to slow down the game and keep the Knights and their shots on the outside of the face-off circles. This neutralized the speed that makes Vegas very difficult to beat especially on home ice. Add in the fact that Vegas kept on trying to make that extra pass instead of realizing what Anaheim’s game plan was from the opening faceoff.
The VGK had a number of quality scoring chances that for some reason they passed up on for an additional pass on Ducks’ goalie John Gibson, who wound up facing just 13 shots in two periods. Expecting a good outcome while only getting 13 shots on the excellent Gibson is anything but a good game plan.
In the post-game press conference, Coach Gallant addressed that aspect of the game, when he was asked for his thoughts on the pressure that Anaheim applied.
“I think it was a combination of how the game was played. They didn’t have very many chances either. There weren’t a lot of shots. There were two teams playing great defensive hockey. It was up and down. They came in here and played a hungry game. They played real well and they played hard. They didn’t get a lot, they didn’t get a lot in the first two periods and they were winning 1-0. They played hard and they played a good game.”
Anaheim was content to keep the game on the outside and in the neutral zone. They only had four shots on Fleury in the first period and a total of 12 shots for two periods combined. They were more concerned with shutting down the Knights’ potent offense and completely took away any fore-check of the Knights.
I asked Coach Gallant on what he thought Anaheim was doing to stifle the Knights fore-check.
“I think the game plan they wanted to play was low shot totals, that type of hockey. Slow it down, lots of face-offs, goalies freezing pucks. So we didn’t play with the same passion for the first half of the game. Second half I thought we were a lot better, especially late in the third period, we started to come more. We just didn’t get enough people hungry around the net enough and again, we played a pretty good game. We had 30-something shots and the goalies played well. Again we just couldn’t get that first goal to get us going.”
To Anaheim’s successful game plan, add that four of the VGK starters were out with injuries. High-scoring James Neal didn’t play, nor did defensive-minded Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, who usually causes havoc on the Vegas forecheck, along with Alex Tuch. Tuch was moved up to play in Neal’s spot, leaving two-thirds of their forechecking line missing, which played a big factor in trying to circumvent the Anaheim game plan.
William Carrier and defenseman Shea Theodore were also out. Stefan Matteau and Tomas Hyka were recalled from the AHL to fill in for the missing players and it seemed to completely throw off the chemistry that VGK seem to thrive off of game after game.
The only line that remained intact was the Karlsson-Marchessault-Smith line and they only had five shots total on Gibson, who played the first two periods and was replaced in the third by Ryan Miller after Gibson injured himself with just eight seconds left in the second period when he and Reilly Smith collided behind the net. Ryan Miller was perfect in the third when Vegas finally started firing shots on net instead of looking for the perfect pass. Miller stopped all 20 shots in the final 20 minutes—a big difference from the 13 shots combined for periods one and two.
Anaheim’s two goals were deflections. Fleury was all set up to save the original shots, but once they were deflected and changed direction, Fleury was left handcuffed. Anaheim only registered 20 shots for the entire game, but they made their two deflection count.
This was a four-point conference game that had all the signs of a tight playoff game, the kind that should be expected in the conference games that remain in the regular season. These types of games will be the standard come playoff time. Vegas’ run-and-gun style with stretch passes is entertaining, but be prepared to see less of this and more of what transpired last night.
This was only the second time all season that Vegas didn’t score a goal at T-Mobile. The last time they were shut out was back on Nov. 28, when they lost to Dallas 3-0.
The VGK are off today, then back at it tomorrow with another 4-four point Western Conference game vs. Calgary at T-Mobile at 7:30 p.m.
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