Knights on Ice — Insanity

Albert Einstein defined insanity as, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Well, call me crazy, but once again, the VGK had a 2-goal lead in the 3^rd period over a team that was playing its second game in 2 nights and once again, they did the same exact thing.

Were they expecting a different result last night than what they had on Thursday night against Montreal? It was the exact same scenario: a 2-goal lead with 10 minutes to go in last night’s game. Thursday night it was a 2-goal lead with a little over 7 minutes to go in the game.

Both the Winnipeg Jets and the Montreal Canadians had played the previous night, while the VGK were home in their own beds. But who looked like the tired team? Let me answer that for you: your VGK did.

This is unacceptable. You cannot afford to lose games like this, especially in your own barn. (Some older hockey fans know that the players call the arenas they play in the “barn,” otherwise known as T-Mobile or as Alan Snel from LVSportsBiz calls it, the “Big Ice House on the Strip.”)

Once again, the first-period early goals by the opposition continued to haunt this team and just 2:19 into the game, Deryk Engelland committed a turnover deep in his defensive zone that allowed Mathieu Perreault to score his 3^rd goal of the season, which put Vegas into an early hole.

Vegas took back control of the game by scoring 3 first-period goals, the first just 2:32 after Perreault’s goal, and added 2 more in just 8:30 of playing time, a strong response. Marchessault added a power-play goal just 16 seconds after Patrik Laine was issued a delay-of-game penalty for shooting the puck over the glass and into the stands from his defensive zone. Max Pacioretty added the next VGK goal just 2:09 after Marchy’s goal on a pretty pass from Mark Stone. Ninety seconds later, Nate Schmidt, who has been a blessing for the VGK in his return to the lineup, added his first of the season when he sneaked in from the blue line and found a lot of open ice to the left of Winnipeg goaltender Laurent Brossoit. Schmidty took a tape-to-tape cross-ice pass from William Karlsson and buried it behind the beleaguered goaltender, who was on thin ice, haven given up 3 goals in just 3 minutes and 39 seconds.

But Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice really didn’t have much of a choice in replacing him, as Conner Hellebuyck, the #1 Winnipeg goalie, had the night off after facing 52 shots in Fridays night’s game vs. the Sharks, which he won by a score of 3-2.

Both teams scored 4 goals on just 14 shots before the scoring barrage stopped. The total shots on goal for the first period ended 10-9 in favor of Vegas.

That was the last goal we saw until Perreault scored his 4^th goal on the power play and his 2^nd of the game with just 9:58 left in the game. The scoring barrage by Vegas ended in the first period and at one point in the 3^rd period, Winnipeg had 11 shots on Subban, while Vegas had only 1 on a goaltender who looked shaky at best.

Unlike the Montreal game when 3 of their goals were scored off bodies and skates, last night’s goals by Winnipeg that cut the lead in half and the winning goal in overtime were good hard-earned hockey shots that came via outplaying and outskating the VGK, who thought they could defy the logic of professor Einstein.

Now, the tying goal by Mark Scheifele was just a blown call by the linesman. He clearly had his arm up, indicating an icing call, and looking at it live, to my observation it was icing. But for some reason, the linesman who had his arm raised waved it off and to the credit of the Jets, they kept playing, not waiting for the whistle that never happened.

Meanwhile, however, Nate raced back to the hash marks to assure that it would be icing, but he lost his edge and crashed into the end boards. The puck was retrieved by Kyle Conner, who sent it back out in front to Scheifele, who quickly deposited in behind Subban, who prematurely assumed it was going to be blown down for icing. Gallant was livid about the call when it happened, but his tone in his post-game presser (the link to that video is below) sounded a lot different.

In other important events from this game, Alex Tuch, who just returned to the lineup, took an elbow to his head from Adam Lowry in what appeared to be an intentional dirty hit. No penalty was called on the play. Tuch left the ice and didn’t return.

On the ensuing faceoff, Gallant sent Ryan Reaves out to take it against Lowry. Reaves isn’t a center, so the message was clear. As soon as the puck dropped, so did the gloves, and the 2 of them exchanged punches before they both fell to the ice. It was Reaves’ only fight I’ve ever seen where he didn’t dominate the entire fight. Lowry is a big boy at 6 foot 5 and Reaves is 6 foot 2. By no means am I suggesting that Revo lost the fight; I guess I’ve just gotten use to him pounding players into the ice. Lowry, ironically, was just returning to the lineup from a 2-game suspension for a boarding hit on Oliver Kylington of the Calgary Flames. That hit and last night’s hit on Tuch are very similar and took place in almost the exact same spot on the ice.

To say the men in stripes had a bad game last night is a given and in Gallant’s press conference, he was asked if the game of hockey in 2019 has just become so fast that to try to officiate it properly has becoming very difficult. He was careful in answering this question; he didn’t want some of the change from his pocket removed for criticizing the caliber of last night’s officiating.

One would think you take the Montreal game and learn from it. Use it as a learning experience that you cannot take your foot off the gas pedal. There is too much parity in this league to expect success if you are not willing to play all 60 minutes or in these last 2 games, 60-plus minutes, as last night’s loss to the Jets by a score of 4-3 took place in the 5-minute OT session.

It’s clear that a lesson wasn’t learned and who should shoulder the blame? Some will say it’s the responsibility of the coaching staff to keep the players focused. Others will insist it lies clearly on the shoulders of the players. I’m going with the latter; the coaching staff can tell the players what needs to be done, but the players are the ones who have to execute the plan.

I do have to say that Malcolm Subban played a whale of a game and was sound in net. He was squared to the shooters, his anticipation was excellent, he played his angles well, and he robbed multiple Jet players of grade A scoring chances. He made an amazing save in OT on Mark Scheifele with a glove save on a puck that had game-winner written all over it. He deserved to win this game.

The return of Nate Schmidt has temporarily fixed the problem that the VGK had been experiencing: puck management and their breakout scheme, especially in their defensive zone. But Nate can only play so many shifts. He’s just one of 6 defensemen. Four of the other 5 D-men’s lack of speed has exposed an open wound in the 2019-2020 VGK roster. If you didn’t know this already, Shea Theodore is the other player who has excellent speed.

The last 2 seasons, Schmidt, Theodore, and Miller were paired with defensive partners who aren’t as quick as they are, so their ability to exit their zone wasn’t an open wound. But with the departure of Miller and Nate missing 13 of the first 14 games, at least 2 defensive pairings had no speed to help with defending against the forecheck of the opposition.

But it’s still a problem and it needs to be fixed sooner than later. A crop of young defensemen in the organization might have to be called up. The team has had only 6 defensemen on their roster and that’s dangerous. If one of them gets hurt in warm-ups, there isn’t a body to fill the void. With the team headed on a 4-game road trip, look for at least 1 or maybe 2 of their young defenseman to be added to the roster that currently has 2 spots open. Pirri was the only non-goaltender scratched from last night’s game. Fleury was out with the “flu.” Let’s hope it really just is the flu.

Nate Schmidt, like Marchessault, gives you honest unedited answers and here’s what he said about last night’s game. “We played 30 minutes well, and we played 30 minutes not good, and that’s just not going to be good enough. I know we get points, and that’s all fine and dandy and everything, but it’s just not good enough when you have two-goal leads and both our goaltenders have played as well as they have the last couple of games. It’s really frustrating as a group to have that happen.”

In last night’s game, William Karlsson continued to shine with 2 assists and 5 points in his last 4 games. His 3-game goal streak was broken last night. Mark Stone had 1 assist and has 12 points in his last 11 games (6G, 6A).

My 3 Stars of the Game: Mathieu Perreault (2 goals), Kyle Conner (game-winning goal in OT and the assist on the blown icing call, which he never quit on), Malcolm Subban (35 saves, some of which are highlight-eligible). 

Next game is Tuesday vs. Columbus Blue Jackets at 4 p.m. Pacific Time

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