Last night, the VGK were bogged down in the middle of a 4-game losing Streak and facing off against the Colorado Avalanche, currently the favorite to hoist the Cup in late June 2022. The streak came to an end last night at Ball Center with a 3-1 VGK win in a sound defensive performance, unlike their last 4 games, where they were sloppy and undisciplined with the puck, especially in their defensive and the neutral zones.
Vegas had another streak going into the game: a 4-game winning streak in defeating the Colorado Avalanche. You can now make that five, a streak that goes back to the last 4 games of Round 2 in the playoffs.
These 2 teams have grown to despise one another and I’m sure blowing a 2-0 lead in Round 2 last year and losing 4 straight is the catalyst in the bad blood, especially to Colorado.
The game was chippy on the ice, with big booming hits, some legal and at least one that cost Colorado a 5-minute major for interference and a game misconduct to boot, along with both benches’ chirping at each other.
Gabriel Landeskog, one of the many skilled Colorado players, was chirping the Vegas bench early in the second period when an unidentified VGK player came up with a line that silenced Landeskog for the remainder of the game. The VGK player suggested to Landeskog to try to get out of the 2nd round. A chirp to end all chirps.
In the last 2 playoffs, there were high expectations for the Avalanche. But they’ve failed to get past Round 1. Actually, their playoff record over the last 19 seasons is dismal: They missed the playoffs 8 times; failed to win a round 4 times, failed to advance to Round 2 6 times. The last time they advanced past Round 2 was all the way back in 2002. So, the well-timed chirp from the VGK bench was classic and found Landeskog speechless for a comeback.
Robin Lehner has been solid in all of his starts except for the L.A. Kings game. He was once again a wall, stopping 26 of the 27 shots he faced. He also received some help from Nic Hague, who prevented a wraparound goal when he covered the open net as Robin struggled to get back. Nic did take 4 minutes in penalties, never a good thing against the Avalanche, who have a dangerous power play.
Speaking of power plays, the VGK went 0-3 last night to extend their powerless power play to 0-14. The last time VGK scored a power play goal was 142 days ago.
It’s so bad that the Knights even had Jake Leschyshyn in front of the net on the power play. Leschyshyn has never scored a power play goal in his professional career. But I guess Coach DeBoer at this point will try any warm body, considering the injuries and the impotent power play that have plagued this team 6 games into the season. Or maybe it was a suggestion from Steve Spott, who runs the power play, as he might be feeling the heat just a bit.
Vegas played their best period of the season in the first 20 minutes, scoring twice for the 2-0 lead. They scored just 2 minutes into the game when Chandler Stephenson backhanded the puck past Darcy Kuemper off a Brayden McNabb shot, creating a rebound that Kuemper could not control.
And with Vegas killing one of Nic Hague’s penalties, Reilly Smith stripped the puck from Cale Makar as he attempted to keep the puck in the VGK defensive zone just inside the blue line. Smith was at the end of his PK shift and out of gas, but he sucked it up and found his way back down to the other end and backhanded the puck under Kuemper for the eventual winning goal.
The final score of 3-1 came about when Dadonov added an empty-net goal with 30 seconds left in the game. The funny thing about this goal was that Dadonov passed the puck back to Kolesar despite being alone in front of the empty net. Seemed like a nice gesture to give Kolesar a goal, considering he’s been snake-bitten recently in the scoring department, but as Kolesar slid the puck into the net, Dadonov touched it with his stick. Not sure why he did this, but it was like, “Here, Keegan, you score this goal,” and then, “Never mind, I’ll take it after all.”
With the good news of the win comes some bad news. Janmark didn’t play the 3rd period and it’s not known if he’ll be available for tonight’s game against Dallas. If this keeps up, the Henderson Silver Knights might have more players playing on the big club than playing at the Orleans Arena.
Other notes. Vegas has had a 4-game losing streak every year except their first. Gerard Gallant was fired after his fourth in 2020.
Jonathan Marchessault was wearing a mic during the game and ESPN may have forgotten to turn it off, because at one point, with the chirping going on between teams, you can hear what appears to be Marchy’s voice yelling to an Av player, “You’re f*#&ing awful!” You just have to love the passion that Marchessault brings every night.
I think ESPN should provide a paid service, where you can hear the players who are wired up during the game. The stuff they say to each other is hysterical. I’d pay for it, that’s for sure.
My 3 Stars of the Game: Reilly Smith (GWG, shorthanded to boot, 4 SOG, and the most ice time of any VGK forward last night with 21:24), Robin Lehner (stopped 26 of the 27 shots he faced), Chandler Stephenson (1G, 1A)
Next game is tonight vs. Dallas at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time
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Miked up…..that would be awesome. Thought wild Bill was outstanding as well last night, both ends of the ice. Krebs coming along nicely!
First period was an eye opener. Good forechecking and crisp passes on the blade of the teammates instead of giveaways and turnovers. They stood up on their blueline not letting Av´s get the puck deep in the VGK d-zone. When it happened Lehner was clearing the puck to his teammates. Lehner was very good for the entire game. In the second period VGK fell back to bad old habits failing to clear the puck out of D-zone and making bad passes in the O-zone a few times that resulted in turnovers.In the third period the only positive thing was blocking shots and making Av´s shoot from bad angels. The great plays from period one was almost gone with the wind. But a win is a win. The zebras seems to turn the blind eye to whatever MacKinnon do to get an advantage on the ice. Exactly the same with McDavid. Our “Mc” hasn´t got that lucky with the ref´s. Braden hitting Kadri into next week was good to see. Hope VGK makes some salad (Dallas backwards in swedish 😉 ) tonight.
Johnny Lawless sent this comment in
“Robin Lehner has been solid in all of his starts except for the L.A. Kings game. He was once again a wall, stopping 26 of the 27 shots he faced.”
Just highlighting that line for those that won’t read the article. I agree completely and obviously it helps we had some actual defensive intensity with a noticeable increase in blocked shots.
As for the +- stats its getting harder to ignore that our top players have significantly poor numbers. When Karlsson, Marchy, Smith, and Pietrangelo are a combined -25 (-7-7-6-5) we probably ought to mix it up a bit more.
George General had this to say
They were actually hitting back last night. Go Knights, go!!