The title is a saying that fits perfectly vis a vis the outcome of last night’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers. Vegas woulda won if they’d kept up the pressure on a clearly tired team that played back-to-back games—and their match Saturday night in Arizona went into overtime.
Vegas dominated the first period. Philly didn’t have a quality scoring chance on Fleury until more 14 minutes in. They coulda won if they’d blown open the first period when they had two glorious scoring chances on Michal Neuvirth in the first two minutes, one by James Neal, the other by William Karlsson. Jonathan Marchessault also missed a completely wide open net on a slick cross-ice pass from Karlsson at the 10-minute mark. If these shots went in, the final score of the game woulda most likely been 4-1 VGK, as opposed to 4-1 Flyers.
They also had a 2-0 on Neuvirth, with Tuch and Bellemare skating in on him, but not only didn’t they score, they never even put the puck on net. Tuch made a blind pass to Bellemare, who wasn’t where Tuch thought he was. These four opportunities shoulds sealed the deal. Instead they lost their second game in a row at home for the first time this season.
The Knights did score first, which seemed like a good start to another win as their record when scoring the first goal coming into last night’s the game was 22-2.
Brayden McNabb was the goal scorer for the Knights and it was his second goal in back-to-back games, the first time in his career he’s accomplished that. But it was also the only goal to get past Neuvirth, who was exceptional, stopping 38 of the 39 shots he faced. Neuvirth had given up five goals in each of his last two starts. Last night, that Neuvirth was nowhere to be found at T-Mobile.
As a hockey fan, you expect that the Flyers will have at least a couple of penalties called against them. Last night’s single penalty was rare. The VGK did get the only power-play chance and when they didn’t score, their streak of nine straight games with a PPG ended tonight.
The VGK dominated through most of the game, with shots on net of 14-3 in the first 15 minutes and 10-1 in the first 10 minutes of the second period, and shot totals of 27-14 after two. But shots on net may indicate who has the better of the play, but they still count the goals to determine who wins the game. So when Philadelphia scored two goals two minutes and 46 seconds apart late in the second period, the Woulda Coulda Shoulda started to become a reality.
The VGK are totally unaccustomed to trailing by two goals at home. The only other time they trailed by two goals at T-Mobile was the 3-0 loss to the Dallas Stars way back on Nov 28.
Even then, the VGK have the best comeback record in the league when trailing going into the third period, at 5-8-1. But last night, Philadelphia would have nothing to do with helping them increase their lead-leading comeback record. The Flyers also own a 19-1 record when taking a lead into the third period. The Flyers completely abandoned their fore-check in the third and instead just clogged up the neutral zone, taking away the stretch passes that the Knights are now so well- known for around the league. The Flyers just dumped the puck into the VGK zone, then retreated to the neutral zone. Philly had a single shot on Fleury in the first 10 minutes of the third period.
Expect to see more of this type of shut down game in the last two months of the season. Get used to it, because the wide-open play you’ve been seeing since October will be coming to an end.
I can’t find fault with William Karlsson this season, but last night, in his haste to leave the zone looking for a breakout pass, he got behind the Flyers’ defenseman. This is a good thing if you’ve cleared the puck out of your zone, but when Vegas had two chances to do so and weren’t successful, the aggressive Karlsson didn’t have the point man covered and it wasn’t long before the puck was behind Fleury for the 2-1 Philly lead on only 13 shots.
The best offense starts with a solid defense, especially when the puck is in your end. Some will say Fleury had an off night; others will say he didn’t get much help in his team clearing Flyers out of the blue paint, the area immediately in front of the goal, as the first three of the Flyers’ four goals were scored in close.
Last year, Fleury had a Goals Against Average of 3.02. This year, it’s 2.03, just about one goal less per game with a bunch of “castoffs” in front of him. Don’t kid yourself, they may be called castoffs, but they’re a complete unit who were playing their first home game after a long road trip, which is historically a bad outcome for the home team. In their last game vs. San Jose that they came from behind to win, that also was San Jose’s first game home after their long road trip.
Speaking of the VGK power play, I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring this to your attention. In their first 45 games, their PP ranked 24th. In their last nine games, the VGK own the number one power play in the entire league. So when the remainder of the season’s games become low scoring defensive affairs, the success of the power play will be the sword with which they conquer teams late in the season and into the playoffs or it will be the sword on which they’ll die.
VGK goal scorer: Mc Nabb (4)
The VGK’s next game is Tuesday vs. Chicago at 7 p.m. at T-Mobile.
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