The VGK won their 17th game of the season last night, 3-2, just 51 seconds into overtime with a goal by Max Pacioretty. Patches took a stretch pass from Shea Theodore, who caught the Dallas Stars changing lines with the puck on Theodore’s stick just inside of his blue line. The VGK have tortured teams with their stretch passes and last night it sent Max in alone on Ben Bishop. Max went from his forehand to his backhand and found a wide-open net to deposit the game-winner when Bishop overcommitted to an expected shot from Pacioretty’s forehand.
It was the first time this season that the VGK won a game with Marc-André Fleury sitting on the bench.
In their game against St. Louis on Thursday night, they were playing against a team that had lost their last 3 games and whose goaltender had given up 15 goals in his last 3 games. Last night, they were playing against the Dallas Stars, who had won 10 of their last 11 home games and were 15-2-1 when scoring the first goal. The VGK lost Thursday’s game and won last night’s game. Go figure.
Dallas is ranked 27th out of 31 teams in goals scored and they’re the number-one-ranked team in goals surrendered, so a low-scoring game was expected and it was a 2-1 Vegas lead with just over 5 minutes left before Jamie Benn scored to tie the game and send it into overtime.
Not good news for Vegas. In the previous 6 overtime games that were decided before the 5-minute period ended, Vegas had only won 1, while losing 5.
In back-to-back games, Vegas had an impressive record of 4-1 — a statement about the team’s conditioning. With last night’s win, they’re now tied with Chicago for the most wins in the league in back-to-back games with 5.
Malcolm Subban had a good bounce-back game. In his last game vs. Dallas on Nov. 25, he gave up 4 goals on just 28 shots. Last night, he stopped 28 of the 30 shots he faced. He also responded after losing to the New York Rangers 5-0 last Sunday.
The entire team had a good bounce-back game from Thursday’s game in which they blocked just 5 shots in 60 minutes. Last night, they had 5 blocked shots in the first 13 minutes and wound up with a total of 22 blocked shots.
In Thursday night’s game against St. Louis, the VGK had a strong first period and a second period from hell, in which they surrendered 3 unanswered goals. Last night, the 1st period might not have been from hell, but one they certainly wanted to move on from. Subban saved the period, facing 15 shots and surrendering only one goal to Taylor Fedun, a last-minute addition to the lineup. He was added so late that he didn’t even take the team’s warm-up, which happens just 30 minutes before the start of the game.
Malcolm stood tall until Vegas got their legs under them for the 2nd period. In a complete reversal of the first period, Vegas dominated the 2nd with 16 shots, while Dallas only had 7. Dallas didn’t register their 2nd shot of the 2nd period until the halfway point.
William Karlsson recently went 10 games without scoring a goal, but now has 2 goals in his last 3 games. His goal last night was the first for Vegas, tying the score at 1-1. Karlsson took a blind behind-the-back pass from Marchessault, who had Ben Bishop so focused on him that he was completely out of the net when Marchy’s blind pass found Karlsson looking at a wide-open net. Bishop tried to scramble back to his right, but the puck was already past him and in the back of the net.
Chandler Stephenson is starting to look like another diamond in the rough and another steal from the McPhee/McCrimmon brain trust. He now has 2 goals in just 6 games since coming over from the Washington Capitals. Last night’s was the go-ahead goal when he found a tiny spot on the short side of Bishop that gave the VGK the lead with 5:19 left in the 2nd period.
Pacioretty’s game-winner was his 3rd goal in the last 3 games and his 13th for the season, which ties him with Reilly Smith for the team lead in 35 games.
Mark Stone continues to be snake-bitten when it comes to goals scored; he’s gone 8 games without a goal and just 2 in his last 13 games. He is contributing, as he has 4 assists in his last 3 games, but the team will be better off when Stone finds his scoring touch. Last season, he had 33 goals and 40 assists with Vegas and the Senators combined. In his 11 goals this season, Stone has 5 PPG and 10 PPP. The power play is dependent on Stone.
I should note that the 4th line of Nosek-Reaves-Carrier had a good game and was hard on the forecheck, even though they were on the ice for the first Dallas goal. On that goal, Nate Schmidt broke protocol on the new defensive scheme and left his area to chase Fedun all the way out to the blue line, leaving his spot to the right of Subban. That allowed a screen to be set up, preventing Subban from seeing the shot. Nate had a rough first period with a few giveaways. The official scoresheet has Nate with only 1 giveaway, but I believe that stat is incorrect.
My 3 Stars of the Game: Max Pacioretty (GWG in overtime, 1 assist), Malcolm Subban (held on till the team got their legs and stopped 28 of 30 shots), Shea Theodore (2 A and the impressive stretch pass that set up Pacioretty for the OT GWG).
Next game is tomorrow at 5 p.m. against division-rival Vancouver, just 3 points behind Vegas for the last wild-card playoff spot and Vancouver has 3 games in hand.
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