If you’ve never heard of an avalanche in the desert, it’s because yesterday, the Golden Knights caused the first one ever, racking up seven goals against the Colorado Avalanche.
The first four minutes of the game were spent entirely in the Colorado defensive zone. The closest any Avalanche player got to the red line was for the opening face-off. But despite the onslaught, somehow Colorado survived the first 20 minutes without surrendering a goal and the first period ended scoreless.
Colorado carried the play for the last half of the first period, but the impending avalanche was gaining momentum and it broke loose in the second period with four goals.
When I first took on this assignment, I truly believed that I would have to be creative and positive to keep readers interested in an expansion team built to win sometime in the future. But I failed to realize one important fact. So have the seven teams that the VGK have taken out to the woodshed and beaten. And that is: This team has a chip on its shoulder.
You see, the VKG has no superstars. What it has is 20 players left on the curb by the teams they played for last year. And when I say “played,” I mean perhaps six to eight minutes per game, if that. Last night, all seven goals were scored by different players and 11 players had at least one point in a complete team effort.
James Neal is the only exception. Last season, he was a top-six forward for Nashville. But with only one year left before he became an unrestricted free agent, the Predators made a salary-cap decision to expose him to the expansion draft.
If you have any question as to James Neal’s commitment to this team, let’s review what happened to him yesterday. In the first period, he was pretty much smacked in the face by a Colorado player’s stick, causing a busted lip that required stitches; some teeth are now missing as well. He spent the remainder of the first period undergoing facial repairs, but was on the ice for the beginning of the second period! If this had happened to a baseball player, he’d be out for two weeks.
Fast forward to the final two minutes in the game, with the VGK up 7-0. An Avalanche player unleashed a blistering shot for which many players with a 7-0 lead would just step aside. But Neal wanted to help preserve 23-year-old goalie Oscar Dansk’s shutout, the VGK’s first. Neal put his body in front of the shot, which shattered his stick! Play continued and Neal, without a stick, a few teeth missing, and a busted lip, dove in front of another shot that was headed to the goal.
No doubt about it, hockey players are the toughest SOBs who play professional sports. For the most part, they’re boys playing a man’s game that’s not for the faint of heart. Yesterday, James Neal showed the other 19 castoffs that even though he was a top player for Nashville last year and came within two games of winning a Stanley Cup, he’s willing to lead with his face in a 7-0 rout.
As I said in my last blog, it’s still early in the season, but now 8-1, fans like me can’t help but wonder if this team can make the playoffs. Before they played their first game, I would have put a positive spin on it and said that anything can happen in this era of the salary-cap NHL, where teams can’t lock up players long-term. Still, I’d have added that everything would have to fall into place for the VGK.
But here’s some relevant data. Only two teams in the entire 100-year NHL history achieved 16 points in their first 9 games and missed the playoffs that year — the 1986-1987 Pittsburgh Penguins and the 2015-2016 Montreal Canadiens.
And with yesterday’s win, your VGK owns the best winning percentage among the other 30 teams this season: .889%. Not to mention a +13-goal differential in their third periods.
Their five-game winning streak also ties them with the two teams in 100 years that had a similar streak to start their inaugural seasons: the 1926-1927 NY Rangers and the 1979-1980 Edmonton Oilers.
Finally, the atmosphere at T-Mobile is playoff-like already. There’s a buzz in the arena, a buzz in Las Vegas, and even a buzz around the country.
Yesterday’s was a big win in building this team’s confidence and character, especially as they go on their first extended road trip to the East Coast, where they play their next six games. A lot will be learned. The VGK have already bonded with its home city, and this road trip will help solidify the bond among the players, if that’s even needed at this point.
The tragic event of October 1 tested Las Vegas’ strength and we seem to have passed that test. Watching the VGK play for our city has helped that cause enormously.
You simply cannot beat a city or a hockey team with chips on their shoulders.
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A GREAT GREAT GREAT ARTICLE !!!!
Hey Joe,
Again, great writeups!
I watched a doc on netflix the other night called Ice Guardians, about hockey enforcers. They spent most of it convincing me that enforcers are necessary to protect the skill players, as the refs don’t see everything and if there are no physical retributions, players will take cheap shots at the stars. They used Sidney Crosby as an example, saying he’d likely have avoided many of the concussions if a real tough guy was there to protect him.
Then, toward the end, they suggest that the enforcer era is pretty much over, which leads me to wonder what is happening to skill players now. Do the Knights have an enforcer? Do most teams?
I love what you said about James Neal. I was at that game, and what a show it was. This is the first post I’ve seen from any hockey writer that talks about how he dove for that puck in the third period, laying his body out like that, with missing teeth and a huge gash on his lip. That was a defining moment for me and I’m thrilled to see you wrote about it as well!
Nice writing