The teams might as well adopt names such as arsenic, cyanide and strychnine in the Western Conference. The playoff pool is pick-your-poison.
Other than home ice, there appears to be scant advantage in the uber-competitive duster that stretches from Tennessee to Texas to California to Manitoba.
The standings remain in flux. The top three divisional spots and wild card berths are up for grabs. And a coach or player would rather swallow hemlock than publicly name a preferred playoff opponent.
Getting into the Stanley Cup tournament is the first step. But any team looking to stick around for more than a round had better be playing its best hockey.
Where the Vegas Golden Knights end up and who their opponent will be is guesswork right now. The mathematical options are myriad.
For the defending champs the regular season has been a struggle. They lead the NHL in man games lost due to injury and have played the last stretch of games without captain Mark Stone, goalie Adin Hill, top pairing D Alex Pietrangelo, top six forward Tomas Hertl and difference maker William Carrier.
No matter as they’ve picked up points in five straight and built a record of 7-2-1 over the last ten games.
Pietrangelo has missed the last six games with an illness but joined the team in Minnesota on Friday and is hopeful to play Saturday vs. the Wild.
“I think the team is playing really well defensively. I think the scores indicate that,” said Pietrangelo, following a skate on Friday afternoon. “I always tread lightly when I’m not playing. I try not to watch from up top when I’m live in a rink because the game looks really slow when you’re that high up. It’s a little bit easier on TV, you can really appreciate the pace the guys are playing at. You’d be surprised when we watch, we are watching, but a lot of times we are still watching as fans. We still want the guys to win. We don’t always watch and dissect what’s going on. We do once in a while, but for the most part we are just watching to enjoy the game.”
There has been lots to enjoy for VGK players and fans alike as the following stats table illustrates:
Last 7 games at 5v5:
Goals: +7 (t-2nd in NHL)
xGoals: 59.3% (2nd)
Chances: +51 (1st)
HD Chances: +26 (2nd)
Chances Against/60: 22.4 (4th)
HD Chances Against/60: 7.01 (1st)
5v5 Sv%: .932 (5th)
All Sit Sv%: .917 (5th)
Lots is going right with the Golden Knights game and, if they can continue to get healthy, the expectation should be that it gets even better.
Goalie Logan Thompson has under-pinned the recent success with exemplary play. In his last five appearances, Thompson is 4-0-0 with a 1.17 GAA and .960 save percentage.
With Hill injured and unavailable, Vegas needed Thompson to step up and he has been reliable and more.
Pietrangelo views the games he just missed as a blessing in disguise.
“You try and look at it that way. Some things are kind of out of our control with what happened to me, especially. There’s nothing you can really do so you try and take it as a positive,” he said. “We are all dealing with some stuff and I’ve been dealing with some stuff all year that is maybe gone now.”
Pietrangelo was ebullient on Friday. Playing a minor prank on a pair of VGK staffers, staying on the ice long and discussing the finer points of mini sticks hockey with the assembled group in the visitor’s dressing room at Xcel Energy Center.
The 1,000-game defender has won two Stanley Cups and was comparing his attempt to repeat with the St. Louis Blues to this season’s run at back-to-back titles with Vegas.
“I think the biggest battle that we’ve dealt with all year is being consistent in terms of our health. It’s just been one of those years. That happens, especially when you have a deep run like we did, playing at the level we did,” he explained. “Guys have lingering things and don’t have as much time to recover. That’s why, in our business, it’s so hard to go back-to-back, right? Teams have done it. Nobody’s done it in a while minus the Tampa, but that was a Covid shortened season and a bubble tournament. That was different. It’s hard and I think now you see everybody kind of getting back into the swing of things. Whether a guy is out or not you are always dealing with something, especially when you win. You don’t get there without playing through something. I think now, guys are finally working through that stuff. We’re feeling healthy. We finally have a little bit of continuity in our lineup.”
