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Fleury, Neal, Schmidt, Marchessault on What VGK Has in Common w/ Best Teams |
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Sheng Peng
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This morning's skatearound revealed what we already guessed, that Marc-Andre Fleury would be between the pipes tonight against the Nashville Predators.
Gerard Gallant said otherwise there would be no line-up changes. Hopefully, this means all is well with Pierre-Édouard Bellemare's wife Hannah, who is expecting.
Over the last couple days, I've talked to a number of Golden Knights about a wide range of topics.
Nate Schmidt, James Neal, and Gerard Gallant discuss how to prevent transition-happy Nashville from dictating pace.
Jonathan Marchessault, Fleury, Neal, and Schmidt share what Vegas has in common with some of the best teams they've been on.
Finally, Schmidt talks about Shea Theodore's highlight-reel one-on-five against the Maple Leafs, and what's the key to such a bold read.
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HockeyBuzz: You did a great job preventing Toronto from getting out in transition. Now you have Nashville, which is just as transition-heavy a team. How will you prevent the Predators from getting out on transition?
Nate Schmidt: The way our structure goes, the way our gaps are, that's the most important thing when you play a fast transition team. You can't let them get too much speed on you.
Taking away time and space as usual, but our gaps are the biggest part of making sure that they don't come at us with a ton of speed.
James Neal: Be aware of it, for sure. Know if we're turning pucks over, they're going to be coming right back at us. So manage the puck. For us, get it behind their D. Don't be sloppy or careless in the neutral zone, in our own end.
Gerard Gallant: We're going to play our same style, our same system. But Nashville is a team, they use their defensemen a lot. They've got some of the best-skating defensemen in the NHL.
Hopefully, we'll make their defenseman go back and pick up pucks, forechecking them, and they're not going to be involved in transition a lot.
Maybe we'll catch their dmen cheating a little bit and we'll get some odd-man rushes the other way.
That's what we hope to do, but easier said than done.
HB: Especially against LA, you guys did a great job taking the middle away from them. Can you talk about what it means to the team to take away the middle like that?
NS: It's hard to defend against. Teams hit the middle of the ice, they can kick the puck out wide, make it harder [to defend]. Especially for me personally. If the puck's on the outside, the [other] D can slide over and you can both be [aggressive defensively]. But when it's coming down the middle, and the puck can be kicked out either way, it really pushes guys back.
I try to [attack] up the middle as much as I can. It's so much harder to defend against.
So if you could keep teams to the outside, it makes everything much more predictable for the D. Much more predictable for everyone on the ice defensively.
That being said, we have to continue doing that. Because that's what [Nashville] likes to do. They love to come up the middle and kick pucks out [to the wings] with speed.
HB: Of course, taking away the middle isn't just hustle, it's also defensive discipline too.
NS: You can't get sucked in to what they want you to do. You have to stay patient and understand it's all part of the plan. If you get sucked in by good teams, they'll take advantage of it.
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HB: You've been on some very successful teams. We're putting the cart ahead of the horse here, we're only halfway through the season, but what does this Vegas team have in common with some of the best teams that you've been on which have made deep playoff runs?
Jonathan Marchessault: Our speed. What makes our whole team successful is the speed and the transition in the neutral zone.
When we're on top of that and forechecking and putting pressure on the opposing D, that's what makes us most successful.
Marc-Andre Fleury: So far...like you said, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. I think we find ways to win games in different ways. Sometimes, we're behind, we'll come back. We get a lead, we can hold on to it. But we can also play good hockey for 60 minutes, consistently, most nights.
JN: We're a really fast team, maybe the fastest team I've played on. We move the puck quick when we're playing our best game. We're relentless on pucks. We're over top of [the other team]. We're giving the other team no room. We're turning pucks over and going the other way. That's our transition game. We're just solid from goaltending out.
NS: A lot of similarities, a lot of differences though. We don't have a certain 1-2 guys to go to, look to every night. We have a whole heap of a lot of guys who can produce.
The biggest thing is making sure we continue to roll our lines, make sure we roll our D. Keep using everyone every game.
Comparing us to teams that I've been on, when your feeling and confidence is high, that's when the locker room is good, guys are starting to believe in each other. That's the biggest thing about winning. Guys trusting the next guy next to them.
HB: Every team talks about playing with speed , but why do you guys do it better than pretty much everybody else?
JM: We all bought in the same structure. We're playing to our identity. We've been good all year and consistent.
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HB: Against the Leafs, Shea Theodore essentially took on the entire team 1-on-5 and beat them. Theodore talked about reading their gaps and his own speed when he goes on a play like that. From your point of view, when do you make a bold read like that? What was your perspective of that play from the bench?
NS: That was impressive.
I'm more baffled how it all happened. Here's the thing, when you wheel from behind the net and you get your feet moving and you can beat the first guy, then everything opens up. Then all the plays are an option. You can come up the middle of the ice and make your move, kick out or continue to carry it.
Beating the first guy is so important. That's the new-age defenseman, I think.
If you can beat their [first] forechecker, completely throws their defensive plan into a bit of a haywire.
HB: I take that beating the first guy is so important because that's where you have to be most careful?
NS: Because you're the last line of defense.
HB: And after you beat the first guy, you can freewheel a bit more?
NS: You can then re-write what you want to do. Call an audible. Now I'm going to carry it. Or now I'm going to kick out and continue to move through.
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