Knights on Ice — Swallowing A Bad Pit and Causing Self Inflicted Wounds

If I were to tell you that last night, the VGK would score 3 goals and Marc-Andre Fleury would only face 16 shots for the entire game, it would be safe for you to assume that the VGK extended their win streak to 5 games. But that didn’t happen in their 4-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins at T-Mobile.

Prior to last night, the Penguins lost both games they’d played at T-Mobile. Vegas also beat Pittsburgh last Oct. 19 when the same Marc-Andre Fleury had a normal performance against his old team in a 3-0 shutout where he faced 29 shots.

There is plenty of blame to go around last night; it wasn’t just Fleury’s fault, even with a .750 save percentage. Spotting teams first goals of the game seems to be the current recipe for Vegas. In their last 3 games, they have given up the first goal in all of them. Last night, like on Saturday night against the St. Louis Blues, they allowed Pittsburgh to score the first 3 goals of the game. Saturday night, they treated the crowd to an amazing comeback in their 5-4 win. So when Max Pacioretty scored his team-leading 19^th goal at the 7:11 minute mark of the 2^nd period, followed by Paul Stastny’s goal (his 12^th and 3^rd goal in the last 5 games) at the 14:15 mark, the crowd of 18,298 was hoping for a repeat performance of Saturday night. The 2^nd period ended 3-2 and the crowd was buzzing to start the 3^rd. Could the VGK really overcome a 3-goal deficit in back-to-back games?

Pittsburgh had other plans. Teams that score first in the NHL win 67% of these games, but trying to come back from 3 goals down in back-to-back games is another story.

In case you were wondering, if a team is down three goals with two periods in the books, they’re about 2% likely to win the game. Alternatively, a team down three goals with just 20 minutes left will lose that game about 98 of 100 times.

When Pittsburgh’s Brandon Tanev blew by and around Nicholas Hague and his long stick just 2:15 into the 3^rd period to regain a 2-goal lead, the comeback was cancelled. Or was it? The SRO crowd was given a new glimmer of hope when Reilly Smith trimmed the lead to 4-3 when he scored his 17^th goal with 7:15 left in the game. Smith also had a big 3^rd period goal on Saturday night that gave Vegas their 4^th straight goal to overcome the Blues 3-0 lead.

When Malkin took a tripping penalty with 2:43 left in the game on Shea Theodore, the stage was set for the comeback. With 2:22 left in the game, Fleury went to the bench, creating a 6-on-4 advantage. Fleury had to return to the ice 18 seconds later for a faceoff in the neutral zone and with the Malkin penalty, Pittsburgh could freely shoot the puck without worrying about an icing call. Fleury did eventually return to the bench, which allowed Vegas to return to the 6-on-4, but to no avail, as Pitt handed Vegas a bitter pit to swallow and cancelled the idea of sweeping the 7-game homestand that Gallant thought his team was capable of, along with creating their first 5-game winning streak of the season. Their other 4-game winning streak occurred between Nov. 27 and Dec. 3 beating Nashville, Arizona, the NY Rangers, and the NJ Devils.

Last night, Pittsburgh was the better team, even though when you look at the shots on goal, you may have a different opinion. Vegas more than doubled Pittsburgh’s shots on goal by a 35-16 margin. Pittsburgh had only 4 shots on goal in the 2^nd and 3^rd periods, but Vegas was asleep at the wheel in the first period. Or were they trying to create a new chemistry with the scrambled lines?

Fleury, who played 13 seasons with Pittsburgh, is 3-2-0 against his former team.

“I don’t think it’ll ever be normal,” Fleury said. “There’s not many guys left from my time there. It’s always nice to see these guys, but I’m still mad when I don’t get the win.”

Injuries are part of the game and Pittsburgh knows that well: One of the best players in the league, Sidney Crosby, hasn’t played since Nov. 9, along with Guentzel, Schultz, Dumoulin, and Lafferty, all starters who are injured.

When asked about his team’s first period, Coach Gallant said, “There were some self-inflicted wounds for sure. We’ve played really good hockey lately. Tonight, we made some early mistakes and they ended up in the back of the net.”

The VGK were playing with fire in not showing up in the first period and I think I may have the reason why they were MIA.

We all want all of the players to be healthy and give Coach Gallant a full roster to work with. As you know, Jonathan Marchessault has missed the last 3 games and Cody Glass was injured in the last game vs. St. Louis. With Cody Eakin now healthy to return to the lineup since being injured on Nov. 29, Gallant had a decision to make: Does he scramble the lines to move Cody back in or does he keep the same lines as he has used during this win streak and not upset the current chemistry of at least the first 2 lines? The latter would mean keeping Stephenson, Pacioretty, and Stone together and have Stastny center Karlsson and Smith. That would have kept the 2^nd and 4^th lines the same.

He chose not to have Eakin center the 4^th line in place of Nicolas Roy. But the Cody Glass injury really tied his hands. He didn’t want to go back to playing Jon Merrill as a forward and that’s understandable, but Eakin’s return created a problem, at least chemistry-wise, for the first 20 minutes. That is what it seemed like to me watching from the press box.

They were out of sync and so was Marc-Andre Fleury, who gave up the first 2 goals on the first 6 shots he faced. The 2^nd goal came off a rebound that Fleury normally steers into the corner harmlessly. This one found its way onto the waiting stick of Patric Hornqvist and he buried it in one swift motion past Fleury for the 2-0 lead. Hornqvist just recently returned to the lineup after missing 10 games due to an injury.

My 3 Stars of the Game: Jarry Tristan (who stopped 32 of the 35 shots he faced), Dominik Kahun (who goal gave Pittsburgh its 3-goal lead and assisted on the opening goal just 2:53 into the game, putting Vegas on its heels), Max Pacioretty (who never stops skating or shooting, as he had a goal and recorded a game high for both teams with 9 shots on goal. Pittsburgh had one player with more than 2 shots on goal and 8 skaters who didn’t register a shot. Pittsburgh had 15 shots on goal as a team, Pacioretty had 9 all by himself)

The next game is tomorrow at 7 p.m. vs. L.A. Kings

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