When the Golden Knights are at their best, they come in waves, rolling four lines, forechecking, sustaining pressure in the offensive zone, outshooting the opposition, dominating. Too often in this series, they haven't made a ripple.
"We've got to play 60 minutes," center Nicolas Roy said. "We've got to be hard on the forecheck, be connected. I think we go one guy, the other guys are not following there. So we've got to be way harder, physical, and we'll retrieve the puck."
Chandler Stephenson returned to center the first line in Game 5 after missing three games with an upper-body injury. That was supposed to slot everyone appropriately for the four-line attack. But in the second period and again in the third, DeBoer shuffled his lines.
"I think with the way the game was going and the lack of success some of our lines have had so far in the series, we tried to jumpstart some guys and look at some different combinations," DeBoer said. "Didn't have much of an effect. But that's one of the things we tried to do."
The top players aren't just failing to generate goals. They're giving them up.
The toughest example came on Montreal's third goal of Game 5. Forward Mark Stone skated through the neutral zone on the penalty kill and turned over the puck at the offensive blue line, trying to stickhandle through traffic instead of getting the puck deep. When the Canadiens went the other way, Stone didn't backcheck hard, skates gliding, stick up.
Perhaps Stone was pressing for offense, having scored once in the past 12 games, Vegas behind 2-0. Perhaps he was expecting defenseman Zach Whitecloud to cover the Canadiens forward who ended up scoring, rookie Cole Caufield.
But this is the Vegas captain and a finalist for the Selke Trophy, which goes to the NHL's best defensive forward.
"This isn't a night that we're going to pile on people," DeBoer said. "We've been on a long playoff road here, and we've got a lot of unbelievable efforts. It was an off night by everybody. Everybody's in that boat, not just Mark Stone.
"So, you know, this is about our response."
That's true, and that's the only way to handle this. Don't point fingers. Stay positive. Win the next one.
The Golden Knights took a 3-1 lead in the Stanley Cup First Round, then lost two straight and faced elimination in Game 7 against the Minnesota Wild, a team with a defensive structure not unlike the Canadiens'. They advanced.
They lost 7-1 in Game 1 of the second round to the Colorado Avalanche, whom they tied for the most points in the NHL in the regular season (82) and to whom they lost the Presidents' Trophy due to the regulation-wins tiebreaker (35-30). Then they fell behind 2-0 in that series. They advanced.
"You've got to find a way," DeBoer said. "Those are the teams that end up standing at the end of the day. They're a good team. They're doing some good things, but we've got to find some answers.
"You know, the good news is, we're still alive. We've got to go and win a game and get this back to Game 7. We've faced adversity before in the playoffs. We've faced elimination before and responded. I know we're going to be better than we were tonight."
