If there was any fear of a pre-holiday letdown, the Golden Knights erased it immediately by jumping out to a 3-0 first period lead on the visiting Washington Capitals.
"They were turning pucks over left and right," noted Alex Tuch.
The score stayed the same, and Marc-Andre Fleury recorded his first shutout as a Golden Knight with 26 saves.
With Nashville's OT loss and LA's loss, Vegas has re-taken the lead in both the Pacific and Western Conference.
Winning Play
When playing on the first line goes wrong...
Tom Wilson tries to go back to the point with the puck, but Tomas Nosek anticipates. Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom are on the wrong side of the puck, and the Knights are off and running again.
This was not a bad idea by Wilson, just poorily executed.
"He kind of saucered it. I got a little bit lucky," Nosek admitted. "I got it from the air."
On top of Nosek's work, the goal scorer Oscar Lindberg added, "[Pierre-Édouard Bellemare] driving the middle, taking away the far D and opening it up for me, that's huge too. You get that lane open."
One of the reasons why the Golden Knights are so dangerous is the ability of all four of their lines to transition effectively, including the more-defensive fourth line of Nosek-Bellemare-Lindberg. Of course, this goal was on the go, as the attackers entered the zone with a 4-on-2.
When playing on the 1st line goes wrong: Wilson on half wall tries to pass it back to point with Ovechkin and Backstrom on wrong side of puck, Nosek intercepts, leads to #VegasBorn 4-on-2, Lindberg scores pic.twitter.com/myvNs5aprr
Lindberg reminded us, "We try to transition fast too, not just chip and chase."
"They keep the game simple. Sometimes, the other lines can get a little fancy," indicated Gallant. "But the Bellemare line, when they play successful, it's straight-up hockey. It's north-south hockey. They play a really good support game. That's why they're successful."
Regarding Nosek, there's a difference between a fourth-liner and a good fourth-liner. He's been a revelation this season:
Small play, but impressed by how Nosek stays with Orlov at the point. There's a difference between a good 4th-liner and just a 4th liner. Nosy is the former #VegasBornpic.twitter.com/GSJDUbSZWf
Tuch credited the coaching staff for getting him prepared:
We did a lot of pre-scout on them trying to find the middle, because they like playing from the middle of the ice out. With the forecheck, we wanted to get as many sticks as we could on the inside.
I think they started figuring out they had to go up the boards more after the first period. They were turning pucks over left and right.
I got a lucky stick on it. It was all three of us, we were re-loading and backchecking. It was a pretty good play by all three of us.
Credit to Brendan Leipsic and Nate Schmidt too, whose stretch connection here helped set up the faceoff which led to Tuch's marker.
Schmidt took advantage of a Washington line change, while Leipsic beat a Capitals forward (Brett Connolly) playing defense. While Leipsic is still goalless after 26 games, he's certainly getting his chances and setting up his teammates. By my count, he had four quality chances at evens tonight, pacing the team.
After being dissected by the Tampa Bay power play last Tuesday, the Vegas penalty kill rallied tonight, holding the Caps to just two shots over four power plays (one abbreviated by the end of the game). They held Ovechkin and his vaunted one-timer to just a single power play shot on goal.
"We did a really good job just being patient. If you get overly anxious, you get yourself a little overextended, guys like Backstrom and Kuznetsov can make you look silly," offered Schmidt. "If you let the game come to you a little bit, that's what we did really well tonight."
"[The PK] executed their gameplan really well," said Gallant.
Negatives
While the Knights slowed down after an electric opening frame, they managed to drag the Caps down too. By my count, these were quality even strength scoring chances by period: Vegas 12-3-3, Washington 3-3-4.
This is not a general criticism of the Golden Knights' power play, but I'm going to bring up this second period opportunity as just an example of what happens when the man advantage is out of sync:
There's a lack of precision: James Neal misses his long pass back to Jonathan Marchessault.
There's a lack of speed: Shea Theodore passes back to a flat-footed Marchessault. Because Marchessault isn't in stride, Wilson can get his forechecking stick in, influencing Marchessault to move the puck quickly to a Erik Haula who hasn't picked up his feet yet either.
Then it's lack of precision again: Haula's pass is behind a bursting Marchessault, which forces Marchessault to turn back for the puck. Flat-footed, he's forced to dump, and Braden Holtby has an easy clear.
The key to a power play breakout is often hitting the man in stride with the pass. Speed and precision go hand in hand.
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