Hertl overcomes scoring slump at perfect time for Golden Knights

LAS VEGAS -- Tomas Hertl was stuck in the worst slump of his life, doing anything he could to get out of it. He rewatched his highlights on YouTube to remind himself of how he could score. He put his stick in the garbage can, hoping to summon a garbage goal, and in the bathroom, hoping to coax, well, a crappy one.

And now, after going 29 games without scoring in the regular season and Stanley Cup Playoffs combined, the forward has two goals in two games for the Vegas Golden Knights. They lead the Anaheim Ducks 3-2 in the Western Conference Second Round and can clinch a spot in the conference final in Game 6 at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday (9:30 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN360, SN, TVAS).

"It's tough when you don't score for so long," Hertl said in his thick Czech accent with a big smile. "It's nice to get monkey from my back. It wasn't even monkey. It was like King Kong."

The slump drove Hertl bananas, and this story shows the psychological battle players can wage behind the scenes. Hockey is fickle, and confidence can be fragile even for veteran professional athletes.

"Everybody (is) human," Hertl said. "It's in your head."

Hertl knows he can score. The 32-year-old has 276 goals in 873 regular-season games and 30 goals in 91 playoff games in his 13-year NHL career.

When he scored 2:11 into overtime on March 4, giving the Golden Knights a 4-3 win at the Detroit Red Wings, he had 24 goals, second on Vegas at the time.

But that was his last goal of the regular season.

He went the last 20 games without scoring, then six games without scoring in the first round against the Utah Mammoth, then three more without scoring in the second round against the Ducks.

He joked that the last time he experienced a drought that long, it was from birth though age 4, when he started playing hockey. But that's probably true.

"It was long time," he said. "It's like, never happened to me."

According to NHL Stats, Hertl's longest pervious drought in a single NHL season, including the playoffs, was 19 games from Oct. 16-Nov. 25, 2015, early in his third season with the San Jose Sharks.

The longer this drought went, the more it weighed on him. He would try to contribute in other ways, like winning face-offs and throwing hits. But he knows his central role, and he feels the internal and external expectations.

"It definitely wasn't easy, because my game is obviously help the team score the goals," Hertl said. "Obviously, I try to do different things, but everybody expected I produce a little more. That's why I'm here."

Hertl is on the power play and goes to the net often. He had many scoring chances, and in some ways, he took solace in that. But in other ways, he wondered how a puck just didn't hit him and go into the net.

Before each game, he told himself, "Play your best. Try to win the game. That's all that matters. It doesn't matter who scores." But then he wouldn't score again, and thoughts would creep in. How long would the drought last?

Hertl is a happy-go-lucky guy.

"He's in a good mood mostly all the time," teammate Jack Eichel said.

But it's hard to be happy with no puck luck.

"You care," Hertl said. "You want to help so much. You want to win. I'm obviously always positive guy, but I'm frustrated. I would lie if I not frustrated not score goals, because that's expectation."

Hertl tried to take his mind off the slump. He likes Pokemon cards, so he'd open some packs, he said, just for "something fun." He'd rewatch his YouTube highlights. After he'd tape his stick, he'd put it in the garbage before warmup.

"I saw it once, yeah," said teammate Pavel Dorofeyev, a fellow goal-scorer who can relate. "His stick was in the trash can. Whatever it takes to get you going."

The garbage wasn't working, so before Game 4 in Anaheim on Sunday, Hertl put his stick in the bathroom to switch up his superstitions.

"It was there for, like, at least an hour, hanging out," he said. "You try to find a way."

Finally, Hertl banged in a pass on the rush with 1:04 left and the goalie pulled in Game 4, cutting the Ducks' lead to 4-3. You could see the relief on his face. Yeah, it was a crappy goal in a sense, considering the Golden Knights still lost 4-3. He said he'd have rather not scored and won. But after 67 days, the curse was broken.

And when a scorer gets one goal, others often follow.

In Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday, Hertl won an offensive-zone face-off, went to the net and ended up backhanding in a rebound, giving Vegas a 2-1 lead at 4:48 of the third period. The Golden Knights went on to win 3-2 when Dorofeyev scored at 4:10 of overtime.

Vegas coach John Tortorella said Hertl's goal was big "for tonight and hopefully for the future." 

"You just try stay with it," Hertl said. "Obviously, I try so many different things over the last two months. It was almost impossible not to think about it, and hopefully this is behind me and this stretch never happen honestly again, because it was way too long."