The Vegas Golden Knights stand with their backs to the wall.
When the Golden Knights play the sixth game of the semifinal series against the Montreal Canadiens on Friday night, it’s a win or lose for the team from Las Vegas.
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Golden Nights, which even before the NHL season began in January was singled out as one of the favorites for the Stanley Cup title, has a lot of question marks to straighten out.
– We still have a lot of self-confidence. We know we can play better than we did last time; it is now time to roll out the best match so far, coach Peter DeBoer told NHL.com/sv during a zoom-sent press conference late on Wednesday night.
– We have to find a way to get our top players started, it is a must at this time of year, said Peter DeBoer. The teams that succeed with it are the same teams that are the winners when the match is over. We must find the answer to the questions we have.
DeBoer stated that in the fifth match, the players had shaky legs and poor accuracy and that it is tough to end up at an early disadvantage against Montreal:
– There are no excuses. We were simply not good enough and we made bad decisions. It became expensive for us, said Peter DeBoer.
Vegas center Chandler Stephenson has missed three matches and was back to the fifth match. Stephenson has seen his teammates, so to speak, from double perspectives – both from the ice and from a bird’s eye view from the stands:
– They (Montreal) do a very good job: they seal all three zones together, no matter what you do, there are always several Montreal players on one, said the 27-year-old from Saskatoon in Canada. They have played very well.
– In five against five, we play well and create situations. But the game in special teams is an important part of playoff hockey: good games there give momentum and bad games make you lose or never find momentum. We are struggling with it now and we must try to make it work. Now there is nothing but victory for us, said Stephenson.
The Vegas Golden Knights opened the Stanley Cup playoffs as favorites along with the Presidents Trophy winner Colorado Avalanche. And the favorite did not diminish when Vegas eliminated Colorado in six games, after turning a 0-2 deficit in games, in the second round of the playoffs. The team still has the opportunity to realize the goal of winning the cup. But then it takes promotion on several fronts: the team must find its way back to the game that gave the league top 40 victories in the regular season, the team must get more out of its forwards, and the team must use its positions in power play. In addition, Vegas needs a big match from Marc-Andre Fleury or Robin Lehner, the two competing for the post of starting goalkeeper.
– I trust both goalkeepers; they can win the match for us, said DeBoer who had already decided the day before which goalkeeper is allowed to play.
– It was an easy decision. I will announce who it will be just before the match, said DeBoer.
The game in numerical superiority has been a big mourning for Vegas, not least in the semifinal series where the team did not achieve a single PP goal. After the latest goal in numerical superiority, Jonathan Marchessault hit the puck after 11.38 of the second period in the fourth match against Avalanche on June 7, Vegas has had 16 chances to score in power play. Result: zero goals. In total, it has been 463 minutes and 33 seconds since Vegas last got to a PP goal. In the statistics, the Golden Knights are the last of all the 16 teams that went to the playoffs with an efficiency percentage of 9.6.
Reilly Smith, 30, from Mimico, Ontario, scored 14 goals in the regular season, four of them in pp. So far in playoff hockey, Smith has scored two goals – none in numerical superiority:
– Sometimes you just need a bounce for it to go well… it is an important factor for us right now. That we have to fight in the PP game really hurts us. We have to try to turn it around in the next game, Smith said.
Video: VGK-MTL, M5: Pacioretty nets on the second attempt
It was the attacker Max Pacioretty who scored Vegas’ consolation goal in the 1-4 loss in the fifth semifinal against the Canadiens. In the regular season, the 32-year-old American from New Caanan in Connecticut was the team’s top scorer with his 24 hits. In the playoffs, he is second on five goals, after Jonathan Marchessault with six.
But the forwards have had a hard time in the semifinal series against Montreal, who played tough and determined against Vegas strikers. Of Vegas’ eleven goals against Montreal, the forwards have scored four and the backs seven.
– The playoff hockey rarely offers goal-rich matches. There is a lot of focus on the defensive side of the game. We are bad in the power play game, but other than that it is typical playoff hockey, said Reilly Smith.
Peter DeBoer tried to see the light in life:
– The good news is in any case that we are still alive… We have faced difficulties before, and we have overcome them. We will find a way to get to a seventh match, DeBoer promised.
The sixth semifinal will be played at the Center Bell in Montreal on Friday night (Viasat Hockey). Drop off at 02.00, Swedish time. A match where the conditions are the easiest imaginable for the Vegas Golden Knights: win or lose.
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