HOLD ’EM, OR FOLD ’EM
Golden Knights’ miraculous run will come to an end tonight if they can’t find a way to beat the Caps
LAS VEGAS — It didn’t look like the last practice. It didn’t feel like this book — this incredible, unbelievable, impossible hockey story — was about to be closed shut.
It looked like just another day of Golden Knights hockey. The stands were jammed at the practice facility Wednesday morning. The practice began with loud chants of “Go Knights Go” and continued throughout. There was belief in the air, belief in a brisk practice on the ice and in the Vegas dressing room, words of hope.
What else do they have left? What else could they say or sell with the series tilting so far against them?
There is a time in almost every championship series that takes on a sense of finality before it ever ends. It is a process of sorts. The team that’s behind begins with concern, moves to doubt, ends up with fear and, right after that, there is a season-ending line with handshakes. Those are the words of coaches.
It is almost over for the Vegas Golden Knights.
They beat the Los Angeles Kings in Round 1, allowing just three goals in four straight wins. They beat the San Jose Sharks in Round 2, allowing just 14 goals in six games, plus overtime. They beat the Winnipeg Jets in Round 3 — and there is still shock in Winnipeg about how that went down — and allowed just 10 goals in five games, winning the final four.
And now Game 5 on Thursday night against the no-time champion Washington Capitals, trailing 3-1, facing elimination, having relinquished 16 goals in four games, with the nearly unbeatable Marc-Andre Fleury having a .977 save percentage in the first round, .935 in the second, .938 in the third, and now .845 (against fewer shots) in this round.
Of the six goals Fleury allowed in Game 4, Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said there wasn’t “a lot of he could do about those goals.” That’s how much the expansion Knights have been dominated by the Big Three of the Capi- tals — Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Nicklas Backstrom — without a sufficient answer of any kind.
By Game 2, there was concern. By Game 3, there was doubt. After Game 4, fear. And now, after a season in which there was nothing expansion about them but their new name and venue, they have the look of a team confused. The fans here may not see that, may not know better, may be blind to the nuances of a trapping and clogging Capitals game.
Even the adept entertainment people who have done such a remarkable job with in-stadium and out-of-stadium acts, have a musical act booked for Game 5: The original band was supposed to The Killers. They had to pull out. They’ve been replaced by an appropriately named band called Panic! At The Disco.
They are an acclaimed rock band, according to the release sent out by the NHL. I’ll take their word for it on this. Panic will be outside the building. Inside, it’s still to be seen.
“The odds aren’t in our favour,” said Jonathan Marchessault, the best Vegas forward in the playoffs. “They’re a different team. They’re a great team. They were better than us the past three games. Give them credit. They’re doing a good job shutting us down. Our best players have to be our best players.”
William Karlsson was the best Vegas player during the season. In this series, almost invisible. He didn’t practise yesterday. He went from no-show to no-show. The Capitals’ top centres — Kuznetsov and Backstrom — have absolutely dominated the Vegas centres.
“If you start to think we have to win the next three games, it gets demoralizing,” Marchessault said.
But they have gone on winning streaks in the post-season. They won their first five playoff games. They won four straight against Winnipeg and who saw that coming? Now they need three in a row.
“One in a row,” corrected Marchessault. “Then we’ll worry about the next one.”
There was no sense around the Knights dressing room that the Wednesday morning practice had any sense of finality to it. There was little emotional talk. There was mostly the usual hockey player cliches of getting pucks deep, moving your feet. And the truth is, against the trapping Capitals, they have to move their feet and get pucks deep. And maybe play with a lead. They haven’t done much of that.
“It’s the same group,” said Nate Schmidt, the former Capital, talking about his new team. “It’s a different game.
“We’ve been through a lot this year, a lot with this city, a lot with this team. Things you can’t imagine. We need to change the momentum of the series.”
They need to change it quickly, otherwise the series ends Thursday night.