Knights on Ice — When Up Was Down and Down Was Up

Things were completely opposite of what was supposed to happen in last night’s game won by the Flyers by a score of 6-2 — at least based on recent results.

Coming into last night’s game, the VGK had the most goals scored in the entire NHL during the first 20 minutes of their games: 14 first-period goals. Last night, they didn’t score in the first period. Actually, they didn’t score a goal until the third period when the game was for all intents and purposes over. After all, the Flyers took the ice for the period with a score of 5-0.

On the other side, coming into last night’s game, Philadelphia had the lowest number of goals scored in the first period in the entire NHL: 4 in 6 games.

Coming into last night’s game, the VGK had given up only 2 power-play goals in their first 9 games, killing off 33 of 35 of the opposition’s power plays. They had the #1 penalty-killing percentage of 94.3%. Last night, the Flyers scored 2 power-play goals in the game. In addition, the VGK had yet to surrender a power play goal on the road. Last night’s game was on the road.

Coming into last night’s game, the Flyers were scoring 1.75 goals per game in their last 4 games. Last night, they scored 6 goals.

Last night, there was a span of just 99 seconds when the Flyers scored 4 goals. The first two came in just 44 seconds and the next two found their way behind Oscar Dansk in just 55 seconds.

Oscar was selected to finally give Marc-André Fleury his first night off for the season. Most of the time, the backup goaltender will play in the 2^nd of back-to-back games, which would have put him in the net today when Vegas plays Chicago, less than 24 hours after last night’s game.

But that didn’t happen and there actually may have been a sound reason to flip the norm here. Whenever I inquire about who’ll be in the net for their next game, Coach Gallant usually says that he’ll speak with Dave Prior, the goaltending coach. Prior and Gallant have also admitted that they ask Fleury about how he feels and his energy level. Could the reason that Fleury didn’t play last night have something to do with the possibility that the Pittsburgh game was both physically and emotionally draining on the Flower?

Putting Dansk in last night was a bit of a gamble, as Oscar hasn’t played a game since Oct. 4, when he played for the Chicago Wolves. With the VGK traveling to Chicago, there was always the option of calling up Garret Sparks, who has been playing for Chicago and has a lot more game time under his pads. Garret has played in 37 NHL games and in 4 games this season so far for the Wolves, surrendering only 9 goals in those 4 games. Dansk hasn’t played in the NHL since October 30, 2017, when the VGK were forced to play 5 goaltenders in their first season, because of a long list of injuries to the first 4 goaltenders in their system. Remember when 19-year-old Dylan Ferguson played in his first NHL game for the VGK on Nov. 14, 2017? He was on the ice for 9 minutes and 14 seconds against the Edmonton Oilers. He faced 2 shots and gave up a goal.

In defense of Dansk, the defense of the Knights offered no assistance to him. It was a defensive nightmare, so much so that Coach Gallant called out 5 or 6 players who, in his opinion, were MIA. He didn’t name them, but it was clear he wasn’t happy about the play of the team in their defensive zone.

“We made some bad decisions in our [defensive] zone. It was the worst [defensive] zone we had this year, and last year.

“I thought some guys on the team competed real hard and I thought some guys were real loose in the [defensive] zone and we gave them too many good scoring chances.”

Strong words, but said for a reason. His hope is that the players see this and realize that they have to do better, know that they are better, and know they didn’t play the hockey that we’ve all seen, especially in their first 100 wins over the last 2 seasons, plus 9 games so far for the 2019-2020 season.

Oscar did surrender 5 goals on the first 25 shots that the Flyers took. The Flyers had scored only 7 goals during their 4-game losing streak, which they broke last night. They’d scored only 15 goals in the first 6 games, the lowest among the entire 31 teams.

The 4 goals the Flyers scored in the 2^nd period were on just 10 shots.

The VGK didn’t register a shot on goal until the 7:42 mark of the first period. The shots after the first period were 15-7 in favor of the Flyers.

Last night’s win was the first time the home team has won any of the 5 games these 2 teams have played. Like I said what was up was down and what was down was up.

The only 2 players on Vegas who seemed to be interested in playing all 60 minutes were Reilly Smith and Jonathan Marchessault. Smith has been the best player for Vegas in the first 10 games. Marchessault made a valiant attempt to spark his team by being physical, but it was too little too late.

Smith and Marchy had the Knights’ only 2 goals. Marchy scored when Vegas had a 5-on-3 power-play advantage and Reilly on a breakaway, accepting a nice stretch pass from Nick Holden. Smith had at least 3 breakaways last night and a puck off the post, along with an excellent chance shorthanded when the score was 3-0. If he buries a short-handed goal there, the momentum of the game might change, but he didn’t and it didn’t.

Next game is today vs. Chicago at 5:30 p.m.

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Here’s the link to the game recap.