Knights on Ice — It’s Good to See The Flower Smile

It’s been awhile since Marc-André Fleury, a.k.a. The Flower, has smiled while wearing a VGK jersey. But yesterday his smile was a welcome sight to all who watched from their couches, as T-Mobile remains empty except for a few lucky media people who get to watch the game live. It was very strange for me to be watching a hockey game at T-Mobile with all of the empty seats and no pulsating crowd noise.

Fleury literally robbed the Anaheim Ducks of 2 points in this come-from-behind 2-1 overtime victory that saw William “Wild Bill” Karlsson tie the game up with just 1:22 remaining, forcing overtime with Fleury pulled for the extra skater. Seven seconds into the scheduled 5-minute OT period, Max Pacioretty broke into the Anaheim zone down the right wing with Mark Stone on his left with the puck. Stone has been on fire since being named the captain of the VGK, with 4 points in 2 games, scoring the game winner on Thursday and collecting 3 assists in the first 2 games of the 2021 season.

Stone kept the puck long enough to force Anaheim goaltender Gibson to cheat toward his right a bit, anticipating a shot. Once he had Gibson frozen in time, he slid the puck across to Max, who in one motion took the pass and wristed a blistering shot past Gibson for the dramatic win — and the quickest goal to start a period in VGK history. It was 1 second longer than the overall NHL record of 6 seconds for the fastest OT goal.

This is the second year in a row that the VGK have defeated the same team in back-to-back games to open the season. In the 2019-2020 season, they defeated the San Jose Sharks in their first 2 games.

The dramatics of this game — Karlsson scoring late, followed by Pacioretty’s quick OT goal — could not have happened without the goaltending of Marc-André, who was vintage Fleury yesterday. Many were afraid he’d played his last game for Vegas in the Edmonton bubble. The contract situation has the VGK pressed up against the salary cap, with $12 million being spent on two goaltenders. It forced VGK management to trade players in the off season when they decided to throw their hat into the Alex Pietrangelo unrestricted-free-agent sweepstakes. Gone were fan favorite’s Nate Schmidt and Paul Stastny.

The fallout from all of these moves has forced the VGK to dress only 5 defensemen instead of the usual 6 to remain under the cap. Some coaches even dress 7 defensemen for games. Vegas has undertaken the 5-defensemen 13-forward experiment in order to remain below the cap. So far, it’s working.

The long-term effects of playing literally one man short on the back end may eventually come into play in this shortened 56-game season, which has a number of back-to-back games. The wear and tear on playing big minutes may eventually catch up to the VGK defensive core. Pietrangelo, who turns 31 tomorrow, was on the ice for 29:26, almost exactly half of the 60-minute game. The silver lining to this schedule is Vegas having 2 goaltenders who most likely would be the starting goaltenders for any of the other 30 teams. This is the luxury Vegas has.

Last night’s performance by the Flower does create a problem for coach DeBoer. It’s a good problem, but it will continue to make his goaltending choices a hot topic, not only in Las Vegas, but around the league. DeBoer tipped his hand a bit during the playoffs by leaning on Robin Lehner for the bulk of the work. But with the performance Fleury displayed last night, he might have a change of heart. Robin Lehner won game 1 against Anaheim, but he didn’t appear as sharp as Fleury and got 5 goals from his teammates. Yesterday, Fleury was left with virtually no goal support for 58 minutes and 38 seconds. He held Anaheim to just 1 goal on 22 shots and was stellar in the 3rd period. This game could have easily been 3-0 or 4-0 Anaheim late in the 3rd period.

At the conclusion of the game, the 3 stars were announced. I’m not sure who actually picks them, but I have a sneaking suspicion that their required mask may have been over their eyes, especially in the 3rd period when Fleury was just amazing. How the Flower wasn’t named one of the 3 stars of the game is baffling.

My 3 Stars of the Game: Mark Stone (assisted on both Vegas goals and has everything you could ask for in a captain just 2 games in), the Flower (whom I’m proud to select; he kept the team afloat until they were able to crack Gibson), and a tie for third between Max Pacioretty (with the game winner and a VGK quickest goal of 7 seconds) and William Karlsson (whose timely goal with just 1:22 left made all of the above possible).

Next game is Monday at the empty T-Mobile at 7 p.m. vs. Arizona

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Karlsson’s goal

Paccioretty’s OT game-winner