Vegas better than OK on PK
Knights owe recent success to penalty-killing unit
The question of why the Golden Knights have become so efficient on the penalty kill in recent weeks was posed to Golden Knights forward William Karlsson and coach Gerard Gallant on Monday.
And both gave the same Jeff Spicoli-in-“fast Times at Ridgemont High” answer.
“I don’t know,” they said.
The Knights (31-11-4, 66 points) lead the Pacific Division and Western Conference, and the team’s improving penalty kill over the past
month has been a primary factor. Dating to Dec. 23, the Knights have successfully killed 29 of 31 power plays entering Tuesday’s 7 p.m. game KNIGHTS
against the Columbus Blue Jackets (26-18-3, 55 points) at T-mobile Arena.
“They compete hard, and the groups are pretty good together,” Gallant said following his initial shrugof-the-shoulders response. “Again, it’s about getting some great saves at key times and usually your goaltender is your biggest PK guy. That’s the biggest thing with us. But, I think our PK guys do a lot of hard work.”
After allowing two power-play goals in a 4-3 victory over Tampa Bay on Dec. 19, the Knights ranked 23rd out of 31 teams on the penalty kill at 78.1 percent.
But starting with a 4-for-4 effort against Washington four days later, the Knights went 10 straight games without allowing a power-play goal, before Tampa Bay’s Ondrej Palat broke the streak on Thursday in the Knights’ 4-1 victory.
Despite allowing another one to Carolina’s Jaccob Slavin in Sunday’s 5-1 victory, the Knights entered Monday’s games 15th in the NHL on the penalty kill at 81.6 percent.
“We always work hard it feels like, and the coaching staff has always been great with scouting before games, the way we’re going to kill each game,” Karlsson said. “It’s been a big part of our game lately. That’s what you need to be on the top (of the standings).”
Defensemen Deryk Engelland (126:22) and Brayden Mcnabb (108:18) lead the ▶ reviewjournal.com/vgk_ bluejackets team in short-handed ice time. Engelland has blocked a team-high 22 shots while short-handed.
Pierre-edouard Bellemare, Reilly Smith and Karlsson are the primary penalty killers among the forwards, tasked with trying to keep the puck to one side of the ice.
“We’re just trying to force them into making a bad play and rushing them. None of that has changed,” Smith said. “I think our players have been better, but mainly, I think our goalies have been making some really big saves. There’s a lot of differ-
ent things that go into it. But it all comes down to the four guys working together.”
While the Knights sit in the middle of the pack statistically on the penalty kill, the numbers are somewhat misleading.
Of the 25 power-play goals they’ve allowed, more than half (13) came in five games against Buffalo (Oct. 17), the New York Islanders (Oct. 30), the New York Rangers (Oct. 31), Edmonton (Nov. 13) and Winnipeg (Dec. 1).
Backup goaltender Maxime Lagace started against the Rangers, Oilers and Jets and was in net for nine of those 13 goals.
The Knights, not coincidentally, lost four of the five games.
Columbus, meanwhile, owns the league’s worst power play with a 13.3 conversion rate. Artemi Panarin leads the Blue Jackets with four power-play goals.
“We’ve really bought into the systems and how we want to PK and it’s started to show,” Mcnabb said. “We dipped a little bit the last few games, but we know how we want to kill and when we do that, we’ve been pretty successful.”
Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal. com or 702-387-5203. Follow @Davidschoenlvrj on Twitter.