Las Vegans get up every day and do their thing. Sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t. Life isn’t easy. The Vegas Golden Knights got served a plate of that on Thursday night and woke up Friday morning to find the leftovers starting at them from the top row of the fridge.
Lots has gone the way of the Edmonton Oilers and they lead this best-of-seven series, 2-0. That’s a tough hole to be in for the Golden Knights.
An injury to veteran defenseman Brayden McNabb and the sour taste of an overtime loss in Game 2 are part of what the Golden Knights had to digest on Friday.
The Oilers, for their part, are getting timely saves from goalie Calvin Pickard and opportunistic offense from up and down their lineup. Edmonton is feeling good today and is intent on keeping the Golden Knights down in the muck.
All of this adds up to a daunting task. But, as good as the last 72 hours has been for Edmonton, the next can be just as positive for the Golden Knights.
It’s time to swallow hard and find a way. Is there reason for hope? Absolutely. Vegas has arguably been the better team over four of the six regulation periods in this series and the team showed it can catch fire with three straight wins to oust Minnesota in Round 1. If the Golden Knights replicate Thursday’s game with a dash more execution they will find themselves on the winning side.
“We did play better to put ourselves in a much better position to win the game. We're always going to look at a few things and that'll probably come up (Saturday) morning. We will go through the technical parts and there will be a little conversation about where we're at and keep getting better because we were much better than in Game 1. And we're going to have to be better if we expect to win the series,” Vegas head coach Bruce Cassidy said on Friday morning. “So, keep progressing in that direction. Saturday we'll talk about what we did well to play a better game. And then a few things that (Edmonton) continue to do well that we can do a better job of taking away. Those are little tactical things and there's not a million things there. I think both teams know each other well and creating some of your own puck luck, sticking with it. When you go through a series usually that pendulum can swing if you stay with it. Two equal teams and I'd put us in those categories. So, that's the message. And listen, we won three in a row against Minnesota. So, we're certainly capable of it. Last year, we were up 2-0, won some road games, and didn't win the series. So, we have a previous history right in front of us of how a series can change. I think the guys understand that. They lived it. So, we're disappointed but we're not discouraged, so to speak. We wanted to win the game. I thought we played well enough too. We didn't [win]. So, let's go play better and win the next one.”
When a team trails in a game by more than one goal, coaches will tell players they can’t erase the opponent’s lead all at once. They need to do it one goal at a time. That’s the same in a series. Vegas can’t get the series to 2-2 on Saturday. Win one game to start. The score of the series will take care of itself.
