When you now look at the standings in the NHL, you will now see an X next to Vegas in the standings. The X is what Coach Gallant refused to talk about for the first 75 games of the season. His face turned red if he heard his players even mentioning that word. The word X represents “playoffs.”
The Las Vegas Golden Knights qualified for the 2017-2018 Stanley Cup playoffs tonight after beating Colorado 4-1 at T-Mobile. The Golden Knights are the first expansion team to ever qualify for the playoffs in their inaugural season. They now have 103 points in the first year with still six games still to be played in this season.
If you want to know how impressive 103 points in one season is, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been in existence for 100 years, having entered the NHL in the 1917-1918 season. In those 100 years, they reached 103 points only one time and that was 86 years after they entered the league in the 2003-2004 season.
Coach Gallant was happy to talk about it after last night’s game, and his players were more than happy. In a post-game interview right from the bench, Alex Tuch, who opened the scoring with a power play goal, was asked if he wanted to say something to the crowd. He took a short pause and with an ear-to-ear smile said “PLAYOFFS, BABY!” Of course, the faithful sellout crowd of 18,326 roared with approval. Yes, the players knew for a long time that their team was good enough to be one of eight teams from the Western Conference to make a run for the Stanley Cup. But Coach Gallant wanted them to only think about their next game and nothing further.
They may in fact win the Pacific Division; they currently lead the San Jose Sharks by 6 points. They’ve led the Division since December 28. They trail Nashville for the lead in the entire NHL by only 4 points. Having the best record in the NHL would guarantee them home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.
Tonight’s game didn’t start off very well for VGK. They appeared to be a step behind Colorado, which kept on putting out their top line of Nate MacKinnon, Gabriel Lanseskog, and Mikko Rantanen, playing more than an entire period in ice time: 23:45 for MacKinnon, 23:20 for Landeskog, and 22:25 for Rantanen. Their top line combined for zero points and only six shots on Fleury.
Meanwhile, Coach Gallant remained committed to staying with his system of rolling four lines throughout the game. The Vegas forwards all had ice time, ranging from 12:22 for Cody Eakin to a high of 19:03 for Jonathan Marchessault. The only Vegas forward who had less than double digits in minutes was Ryan Reaves, who logged 9:12.
Coach Gallant continues to tinker with the Knights top line, trying to find a replacement for the injured Reilly Smith. Even though Tomas Tatar has looked good in Smith’s spot over the last few games and started with the top line, it wasn’t long before he replaced Tatar with Alex Tuch. Tuch responded like he wanted to show Gallant that he’s the guy who can fill the void left by Smith. Tuch scored a power-play goal, had 5 shots on net and 4 hits, and provided a screen for Marchessault’s goal, even though he didn’t receive an assist. Tuch was involved and engaged the entire game.
Vegas scored 2 power-play goals in 4 attempts and was perfect in shutting down the Avs, who had 3 power-play opportunities.
Fleury surrendered only one goal on the 29 shots he faced and that goal was questionable. On the suggestion of Fleury, a teammate skated over to Gallant, who then lodged a coach’s challenge for goaltender interference. This has been and continues to be an Achilles heel for the NHL this season, as calls on these coaches’ challenges seem to vary game by game. In the replay, it did appear that the Avs’ player in front of Fleury seemed to catch his right pad, but after review, it was ruled a good goal. In my opinion, Fleury isn’t the type of player who’d suggest that the goal should be challenged unless he felt he didn’t have a chance to face the shooter in time.
It turned out to be a non-factor as Fleury was perfect for the remainder of the game and kept the Avs’ off the scoreboard. Last night’s victory was Fleury’s 403rd, which tied him for 11th place overall in wins with Grant Fuhr.
With his goal, Jonathan Marchessault continues his scoring streak: 3 goals and 4 assists during this 5-game point streak.
William Karlsson finally got his 40th goal tonight when he scored with just 16 seconds left in the game into an open net as Colorado pulled their goaltender for an extra skater with over 2:30 minutes left in the game.
Shea Theodore, who has been very aggressive in the offensive zone over the last few games, had a goal and an assist in tonight’s game
VGK goal scorers: Tuch (14) PPG, Marchessault (25) PPG, Theodore (5), Karlsson (40) empty net
The VGK’s next game is Wednesday March 28 vs. Arizona: 7 p.m. at T-Mobile.
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