Last time these two teams met, the Knights pulled out a close win. Let’s see how they do now.
Just the Facts
- The Time: 10:30pm EST
- The Place: T-Mobile Arena, Paradise, NV
- Place to Watch: NESN, SCRIPPS, SportsNet, SportsNet 360, TVAS
- Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hub
- An Opposing Viewpoint: Knights on Ice
Know Your Enemy
- The Golden Knights are 39-20-8, have 86 points in the standings, and are 1st in the Pacific Division and 3rd in the Western Conference.
- Jack Eichel may in fact have a future in this league, as he leads the Golden Knights in points with 80 in 66 points.
- Two players are racking up goals in equal measure for Vegas: Tomas Hertl and Pavel Dorofeyev have 27 goals in 67 games.
- Adin Hill remains the man to go for in these troubling times for the Knights; he’s got 40 games under his belt, a 24-11-5 record, and a .907 SV%
Game Preview
Well, after a brief honeymoon period, we’re now watching the Boston Bruins as we probably expected them to be after selling; undergoing a significant amount of struggle in the hopes that the future will be better. We’re even deep in what will likely be a trial run at the Fabian Lysell era, as he’s been recalled on emergency basis. Very cool!
The Golden Knights meanwhile are what they’ve always been; disgustingly, revoltingly successful by being the team who embodies putting up or shutting up; they pay for the best, so usually they get the best after swindling most of the rest of the league. That’s been true since day one, and it’s true now…
Or so you’d think!
Vegas didn’t do a whole lot of adding this year at the deadline, and haven’t had the best record coming out of it; spending the last week losing to LA, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Detroit. The last two losses are particularly eyebrow-raising, as the Sabres and Red Wings are teams that they really should’ve beaten and lost in agonizing fashion anyway; A shutout loss to the Red and White, the other a shootout loss in which they only had 19 shots on goal. This rough stretch isn’t heralded by secretly poor possession stats either; they’re 6th or 7th in the league at Corsi-For, Fenwick-For, and Expected Goals-For, and they don’t really juice it with a ton of low-danger chances; they get these goals and shots the old fashioned way by going to the net or to the dangerous parts of the ice. This is a good team that is going through a very rough patch. So Boston better be ready for a squad desperate for a bounce back.
We of all fanbases should know what happens to the mood in a Bruce Cassidy locker room when he starts to crack the whip. Allegedly, anyway.
The last time these teams met, Boston was able to hang on until the third period, wherein Dorofeyev and Hertl once again flexed their might and won the game for Vegas in the third. That was back in February. Now, the team faces a similar issue where they start strong like they did in that Golden Knights game, and run out of gas towards the end of the game; whether because of one of many defensive SNAFUs anywhere in the lineup from anyone, or because the offense has been successfully identified to be a Morgan Geekie/David Pastrnak production most of the time, and can be pinned down afterwards.
If there’s anything I want out of this game, a win would be lovely, but I would love to see this team actually take the lessons they took out of the trade deadline and not play like their skates are weighted with lead after a game tying or game leading goal-against, and keep the pressure on. Over the past couple of games it’s killed them in spite of strong individual performance by either a goalie or a skater, and if they want to bring some better habits with them into next year, now is the time to start setting them up.
Either way, should be an enlightening game as the Bruins face a demon of the West. It’ll be informative to see what they need to do in order to match up.
See you at the Gamethread!