Knights on Ice — Strangers in the Knights

“Strangers In The Night” was a song made famous by Frank Sinatra in 1966, which helped him revive his career. A fact that’s not widely known is that Sinatra hated this song. “I just can’t stand this song, but what the hell.” Sinatra announced at a gig in Jerusalem in 1975.

Well, Vegas Golden Knight fans, let me be the first to welcome you to the 2021-2022 version of Strangers in VGK uniforms. You might hate it, but what the hell. If this year’s team has as much success as the song, it will be a fine time for hockey in Las Vegas.

If you’ve been following the VGK since 2017-2018, you’ll need a notepad to keep track of the new players this year. The VGK front office has done almost a complete makeover of the original team and the previous four years of what most of the other 31 teams would love to have accomplished.

Vegas has reached the playoffs in all 4 of their seasons, winning 183 games of the 291 played. They’ve won their division twice (2017 and 2019) and tied with Colorado when both teams wound up with 82 points in 56 games last season. They made it to the Final 4 teams three times and we all know about their improbable run to the Stanley Cup Final. The team also won 38 of 66 playoff games and that’s the problem. The goal is to win 16 games in one playoff run and the team that you all have come to love hasn’t been able to do that. So in this cap-unfriendly situation, changes had to be made and some popular players have left over the last few years, especially 2 over the last off season.

But the goal is the Stanley Cup and the front office is willing to continue to move all in in their quest to achieve this.

The only players from the original Misfits who appear on the 2021-2022 roster are, in no particular order: Shea Theodore, Brayden McNabb, Reilly Smith, Jonathan Marchessault, William Karlson, and Alex Tuch.

Now for your notepad, here are the new players who have made the team out of training camp: Evgenii Dadonov, Pavel Dorofeyev, Jack Dugan, Brett Howden, Nolan Patrick, and Laurent Brossoit. 

Last night, the VGK opened what we all hope will be a normal 82-game season playing the other 31 teams. The only thing that remains strange is watching from your seats with a mask on. But think back to when you couldn’t attend because of COVID and I bet you would have sat with multiple masks on to watch a game live in front of a full house at T-Mobile.

It’s only fitting that the newest team in the NHL, the Seattle Krakens (pronounced “Crack-in”), opened their season against the second-youngest NHL franchise. The schedule makers got his one right. Here’s what happened. 

The VGK won 4-3, an abundance of ebbs and flows made the score deceiving.

The Seattle Kraken came flying out of the gate and in the first 27 seconds of the game they stormed into their offensive zone and had the VGK and Robin Lehner scrambling for their fishing nets and harpoons to try to contain these pesky sea creatures. Alex Pietrangelo was forced into taking a tripping penalty at the 27-second mark, but it might have been a blessing in disguise, as it stopped the game and forced Vegas into a penalty-killing situation, which seemed to calm the VGK’s early-game jitters.

Just 43 seconds after the Kraken power play ended, Max Pacioretty scored the first goal of the season with a tape-to-tape pass from Mark Stone streaking down the right wing. The east-to-west pass caught Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer leaning left and he couldn’t recover for Pacioretty’s laser shot. The line of Stone, Pacioretty, and Stephenson wound up with 3 goals and 5 assists for a total of 8 points. Pacioretty had 2 goals, Stone 3 assists. The VGK needed that kind of production from their top line, with additional contributions from Marchessault, whose goal was a dandy and will be highlighted for the next few days on ESPN (video link below).

The Knights need their top 6 forwards to set the tone in scoring. Once again, with injuries and salary-cap gymnastics, the 3^rd and 4^th lines are thrown together for the most part. Dylan Coghlan, a defenseman, played as a forward on the 4^th line. With forwards Carrier, Roy, and Tuch out with injuries and losing Patrick Brown on waivers yesterday, that was the only choice. Coghlan saw only 6 shifts and 4:37 of ice time, while Pavel Dorofeyev had even less — 5 shifts and 4:07 ice time. Fortunately, Vegas scored their first 2 goals on just 3 shots and when Max Pacioretty scored his 2^nd goal of the game, they built up what seemed to be a comfortable lead of 3-0.

But then the Kraken made things a little interesting when they answered back with 2 goals of their own just 1:12 apart. 

With just about 12 minutes to go in the 3^rd period, Marchessault had the puck on his stick entering the offensive zone and failed to get it deep into the zone. Morgan Geekie sped the other way and ripped a blast over Robin Lehner’s to tie the score with 12:02 left in the game. After scoring his goal, he twirled his stick as he skated by the VGK bench and stared down the VGK players. Big mistake, kid. That little showboating fired up Mark Stone, whose pass to Stephenson 35 seconds later glanced off his skate and into the net for the game-winner. The goal was reviewed by the war room in Toronto and ruled legal. I’m not so sure about that, but hey, why not welcome the Kraken to the NHL with an opening loss on a controversial goal? Nothing like a cold shower to wake you up. Trust me, Kraken fans, we’ve all have had this happen and you’ll be on the good side of one of these rulings real soon.

For all intents and purposes, Vegas played the entire game with 3-1/3 lines. That’s not a winning formula going forward against established teams. Hopefully, Carrier and Roy’s injuries won’t be long term. Alex Tuch is on LTIR and will miss a good portion of the season.

About Lehner, Coach Pete DeBoer said, “I thought he was good. That’s a tough game for him. We all know the footsteps he’s following and there’s no hiding from that. It was an important win for him in a tough game.”

He continued, “I thought our top two lines were exceptional and we needed them to be. We were shorthanded tonight. We had to really lean on the big guys.”

Other game notes. Vegas is 91-0-1 when leading by 3 goals. Last night’s crowd was announced as 18,431 but it sounded like 25,000 VGK fans who were pumped to be there. The crowd at T-Mobile was very supportive when Robin Lehner was introduced as the starting goaltender. That had to have made him feel good, considering the love/hate VGK fans have over the off-season trade of the beloved Marc-André Fleury.

The Kraken did win something last night, the Twitter game. The VGK tweeted, “OMG, act like you’ve scored before.” The Kraken responded, “OMG are you the fun police now? ” Final score: Kraken Twitter 1, VGK Twitter 0

I feel at least a Twitter rivalry has begun. After all, we can’t even count the Sharks anymore

My 3 Stars of the Game:

1)Max Pacioretty (2G 1A)

2)Mark Stone (3A)

3)Chandler Stephenson (1G which was the Game winning goal and 1 A)

Next game is tomorrow vs. the L.A. Kings at 7:30 p.m. in L.A.

Your comments and opinions are welcome here on Las Vegas Advisor or you can contact me directly at [email protected] or you can leave your comments and opinions on my Facebook Page or the Facebook Page of Vegas Hockey Guy

Marchessault’s tricky goal

Stephenson’s was-it-kicked-in goal