Knights on Ice — Some Consistency and No Consistency

“In hockey, the biggest adversity you face is consistency. It’s hard to show up every night. It’s something as a hockey player you struggle with a bit, so it’s on us to be able to perform every night, and we weren’t performing tonight.” – Golden Knights forward Jonathan Marchessault

As Eddie Rivkin pointed out in a past post, most VGK players are consistent about staying on script. The two exceptions are Marchessault and Reaves. These are the guys you want to hear from to get a true explanation of the pulse of the team and what’s being said among the players — not what the players really want to say, but don’t.

Marchessault says what he feels. He wears his emotions on his lips as they project his heartfelt words about the team and most of the time about himself and what he needs to do better. It’s refreshing to have access to Marchy and, of course, when you turn Ryan Reaves loose, who knows what he’ll say?

Last night the consistency was clear: The VGK continue to struggle against teams outside their division, losing games to Boston and Nashville last night 5-2, while feasting on Pacific Division opponents. The only loss in their division was on the road vs. Arizona in a game that everyone would just like to forget. Otherwise, all their wins have been against Pacific Division teams: twice against San Jose and once each against Calgary and L.A.

The other consistent fact is that the team is surrendering key goals in crucial times of a game — either late in a period or early in the game — which causes momentum swings in the wrong direction. Last night, Nashville scored on the very first shot of the game to take an early lead. Vegas had all of two shots on goal through a good portion of the first period, before Mark Stone potted another power-play goal for his 5^th goal of the season at the 9:55 mark of the first period.

The goal was set up by Cody Glass, deep in the zone with the puck on his stick just off Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne’s right shoulder. Glass pulled a Michael Jordan look-away pass to Stone who was in the slot. Glass had his head facing away from Stone and was looking toward his right, knowing full well that Rinne was watching where his eyes and head were. But the kid, who continues to impress, slid the puck over to Stone without even looking in Stone’s direction. Rinne didn’t have a chance.

When Reilly Smith picked up a juicy rebound off a Marchessault shot and buried it, that made it 2-to-1 with just 2 minutes and 37 seconds left in the period and all looked well for the VGK. To top things off, 50 seconds after the Reilly Smith goal, which tied him with Stone for the team lead in goals with 5 each, Stone exchanged cross-checks with Roman Josi, the Nashville captain in front of the net, and it wasn’t long before the gloves were off and two players not noted for fighting were engaged. Stone landed a big right hand, sending Josi to the ice, and both were sent off for 5 minutes each.

All good? You’d think Vegas recovers from a lackluster start, scores 2 goals, Stone takes matters into his own hands, and the period ends with the crowd of 18,188 standing and cheering the team into the locker room.

But not so fast. The consistent bad starts to periods have yet to begin and just like the first period where Nashville scored on the first shot, they opened the second with a goal just 44 seconds in to tie the game at 2-2. They then proceeded to score 3 unanswered goals, with 2 more in the second period and the 5^th and final goal 4 minutes into the 3^rd period on a power play by Nick Bonino to put the game out of reach and send Vegas to a 4-3-0 record with 2 of the losses so far this season at T-Mobile.

Only 2 VGK players had a + rating for the night: Reilly Smith and William Karlsson. Shea Theodore and Brayden McNabb were both -2. Mark Stone, whose PPG isn’t factored into the plus-minus ratings, was also a minus 2. In fact, seven VGK players were -2 for the game. Needless to say, it was all highly unusual for the VGK, who are usually very quick on the puck, especially at T-Mobile. But Nashville is also a quick team with a lot of potential for a deep playoff run.

I’m hard-pressed to find 3 VGK stars of the game, as even Fleury had a tough night with the puck, giftwrapping one of the Nashville goals in the 2^nd period.

But if I had to pick just one star for Vegas, it would be Cody Glass. He just makes the power play so good, especially down low. Last season, a lot of the VGK power-play shots were from the point. This year, they’re from down low and in the dirty areas of the ice, which are much more difficult to defend, and with the movement of the puck from the power-play unit at times, all 5 guys are touching the puck in the offensive zone. This wears down the penalty killers and they’re unable to get fresh players on the ice, as Vegas keeps control of the puck in their offensive zone.

Their power play is one of the good consistent things that Vegas has accomplished so far this season, but their inconsistency in other areas needs to improve, just like Marchessault was truthful enough to admit last night.

The next game is tomorrow at 7 p.m. at T-Mobile vs. Ottawa. It will be Mark Stone’s first game against the team he played with since he broke into the league in 2012-2013.

Your comments and opinions are welcome here at Las Vegas Advisor or you can contact me directly at [email protected] or visit my Facebook page or VegasHockeyGuy Facebook page.