"Probably at the start," Maurice said Monday. "But that disappeared fairly early. We played them and they were fast and beat us real strong."
The Golden Knights advanced to the Western Conference Final with a win against the San Jose Sharks in Game 6 of the second round Sunday. The Jets, who lead the Nashville Predators 3-2 in their best-of-7 second-round series, can get to the conference final for the first time with a win in Game 6 at Bell MTS Place on Monday (9:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVAS).
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"If you watch a lot of hockey, they've played the game that they're playing now right from the get-go," Maurice said. "It wasn't a team that got hot in the last month to make the playoffs.
"They've been good right from the start straight through, and if you're new to the NHL but a longtime hockey fan and you turned on the TV and didn't know that was an expansion team, you wouldn't have thought it was."
The Jets were 1-1-1 against the Golden Knights during the regular season. They won 7-4 in Winnipeg on Dec. 1, and lost 5-2 in Vegas on Nov. 10 and 3-2 in overtime in Winnipeg on Feb. 1.
To face the Golden Knights again, the Jets first must take care of business against the Predators.
Nashville coach Peter Laviolette has made two lineup changes, both on the fourth line, with forwards Scott Hartnell and Calle Jarnkrok replacing Miikka Salomaki and Ryan Hartman.
