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VGK 1, AZ 0: What Had Happened Was.....

January 25, 2021, 3:10 AM ET [2 Comments]
Jeff Paul
Vegas Golden Knights Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT


The Vegas Golden Knights: A ton of action, but not a lot of scoring. Is this an accurate tag line for the Golden Knights? They emerged victorious over the lowly regarded Coyotes, by a score of 1-0, but it took nearly 59 minutes to crack Darcy Kuemper. Eventually they did and will now head into their two-game series against the St. Louis Blues on a high note.

Marc-Andre Fleury got the start for the away team and had a good showing. He made timely saves, albeit being few and far between. He stopped a whopping total of 16 Coyote shots on his way to his first shutout of the season.

Without further conjecture, what had happened was......

Shots, Shots, Shots!!!


It’s no secret, the Golden Knights like to play fast and aggressive. They get pucks on net from good spots and bad. From the point and in tight. Here’s a shot, there’s a shot, everywhere a shot, shot. Point is, this team keeps a goalie active and they rarely let off the gas pedal.

Deciphering whether that gets the opposing goalie into a rhythm or not is a legitimate task. Darcy Kuemper was peppered with pucks and tested with shots that missed the mark for just under 60 minutes. He was active, but it seemed to help him stay in the game.

Looking into the 5-on-5 Corsi numbers the Golden Knights out generated the Coyotes by a significant 61-36 clip. While only 27 of those pucks got on net, they kept the Yotes on their tails and Kuemper working. They say good things happen when you get the puck on net, so let’s chalk this shot generate up to being a good thing.

Must Be Swedish, There’s No Finish


With all those shot attempts, you’d figure the team would have more goals. Instead the Golden Knights converted on one of 61 shot attempts. 1.63 goals/100 shot attempts, not good enough for a team with this much talent.

Jonathan Marchessault needs to score. Reilly Smith had a wonderful game, but needs to score. Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone are billed as elite and need to score. Marchessault and Smith had the fifth and sixth best 5v5 Corsi For % respectively, but there needs to be more payoff.

For what it’s worth, Marchessault felt like his line had their “best game by far” of the season. Eventually they scratched their way to that GWG - which is nothing to scoff at - at the very tail end of regulation. Sadly, on most nights, that won’t be good enough to win. They need to carry the team more, ala 2017-18, as a locked in Top-Six line. Their success has the potential to make or break the season for the Golden Knights.

Was Kuemper good?
Yes, he was.
Can they still beat a goalie when they are on their A-game, with an average defense corps in front of them?
Yes, they can.

Goalie Duel


Far too often, former Golden Knights Head Coach Gerard Gallant would chalk up a game like this to the opposing goaltender. He’d offer little other reason for a lack of production and hang his hat on a strong performance in net.

“We ran into a hot goalie.”
“The goalie over there was real good.”

One could ascertain that a refusal to look deeper or make changes ultimately cost him the VGK job, but you also can’t completely throw away the effort of a strong netminder. Kuemper had the advantage of seeing the Golden Knights for the past three games. He’s ready for what they do, he’s prepared at game speed. That showed this evening.

Combine the past three games with the fact that he was in the running for the Vezina Trophy last season and the picture starts to paint itself. Give a good goalie enough tries to beat a team and he will. Kuemper got Game Three of the series on Friday and nearly stole Game Four. His team let him down, in addition to Fleury doing his part.

He wasn’t tested often, but the man they call Flower made timely saves and sometimes they were far too dangerous. The Golden Knights still have a tendency to breakdown in transition, leaving a ton of pressure on the goalie to make a big stop every now and then. It’s hard to harp on the club for how well they suppressed the speedy Coyote attack this evening. Tonight’s game was clearly a goalie duel and Fleury still has it.

Player Utilization


As mentioned previously, Marchessault and Smith had great nights in terms of shot generation (combined 36-16 CF-CA). A combined 69.2% is amazing. One forward line outperformed them and that was the Tuch-Roy-Kolesar trio. That line had an ungodly 84.62 CF%. When they were out, the puck was flying in the Arizona zone.

Any team would want a line dominating that much on the ice, as much as possible. The line has skill, with Tuch and Roy serving as valuable depth pieces with puck skill. Kolesar is a banger with some skill of his own. They’re not a liability as evidenced by the skew of shots during their ice time. Everything sounds great, right?

Wrong. The Roy line had the least 5-on-5 ice time of any of the four forward lines. This includes the fourth line who have a combined 94 career goals between the three of them. It’s no secret that Gallant loved them and Pete DeBoer does as well, starting games with that trio, but the Nosek line is taking valuable time away from the Roy line.

VGK’s Optimal Lineup


What makes things worse, is Cody Glass’ absence from the lineup, for “cap reasons”. Glass is an offensive-minded center who has a ton of skill and a solid set of hands. He’s an above-average playmaker and sees the ice very well, especially on the power play, something that goes stagnant for Vegas quite often.

Taking him out of the lineup over the other possible options is unacceptable, when the team is mightily struggling to score every game or so. A Ryan Reaves or to a lesser extent, William Carrier can be held out of the lineup and sent to the Taxi Squad with little concern of a waiver claim.

Keegan Kolesar has gelled well with the third line and would most likely be claimed, presenting two good reasons why he’s not sent down for Glass. Do you bring Glass up and play him alongside Nosek and Carrier to create four scoring lines or keep pumping out a fourth line with such little scoring potential?

That’s a question for DeBoer and the VGK front office. They like what they see out of the unit, but there will be times, like tonight, where there can’t be too many cooks in the kitchen. Lucky for them, Chef Karlsson showed up before it was too late.

Regardless of the breakdown and nitpicking, a win is a win and once again, this team’s resiliency and never-say-die attitude got them a W. They found a way to get two points once again, when it looked to be slipping from the grip. There’s no denying how good this team is, even when they aren’t so good.

Moving On


They’ll need to be ready to go because next up are the St. Louis Blues, just two seasons removed from a Stanley Cup win. Current Golden Knight Alex Pietrangelo captained that club and will be playing against his old buddies for the first time since he signed with Vegas this offseason.

You won’t want to miss those games so tune in! Follow along all season for your VGK news and updates! Join the discussion on Twitter during games or go ahead and check me out at the links below!

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