I think that Tatar needed to get a body on Jaden Schwartz along the wall. While Tatar probably wouldn't have been able to seal Schwartz, even a brief delay might have allowed Vegas to mark Schenn more closely.
Anyway, Tatar made up for that mistake here, coming back hard after turning the puck over on entry:
"I just wanted to recover; I took a few hard steps back," said Tatar. "I saw Haulsy down by the post and Nealer open on the side. The idea that I had in my head just happened."
The Slovakian flashed his puck poise, waiting for Erik Haula to space himself a healthy distance from James Neal before releasing the pass.
Up to this point, St. Louis had been controlling the second period; they were on top of virtually every Vegas attack, and owned, by my count, a 4-1 even strength scoring chances edge. But that's a funny thing about hockey, it just takes one unfortunate bounce, and all your good work goes for naught. What had been a great play by Schwartz turned into the Blues leaving the zone too early, and Vladimir Tarasenko and Vince Dunn getting lost in coverage.
I'm not sure why Tarasenko thinks Tatar is going left; I'm not sure why both he and Dunn are up on Tatar, leaving poor Joel Edmundson to contend with a two-on-one down low.
"Yeah, I think it bounced there [on Schwartz]," Tatar acknowledged.
Pluses
Beyond his shorthanded goal, Karlsson was incredible. But let's start with his 41st of the year:
What gets me here is the read. It's an aggressive, brilliant read that neither the trailing Schenn nor the pinching Alex Pietrangelo predict.
Obviously, it's also soft hands displayed by both Karlsson on the goal and Cody Eakin on the pass. But most importantly, this was elite anticipation by the Swede.
"I just saw it was very open and I went for it," said Karlsson.
Speaking of Karlsson's anticipation, whatever happened (or didn't happen) in Columbus is forgotten; undoubtedly, he has a top-six forward's patience with puck.
He takes the extra beat here to wait for Jonathan Marchessault to flash through the slot; that extra split-second forces Patrik Berglund to slash Marchessault to prevent a Grade-A chance. Also, right after Karlsson lets go of the pass, his feet are moving again, searching for better offensive position.
Karlsson turns a two-on-two into a two-on-one with a toe-drag worthy of David Perron. This is creating your own shot, which is an underrated hockey skill; not everybody can do it.
Karlsson comes out from behind the net, and instead of the natural instinct to fire at will, he waits and waits and waits, until the second he feels Schwartz. Jake Allen makes the save, but Karlsson recovers the rebound and appears to headfake Schwartz into thinking he might turn toward the blueline with the puck. Instead, Karlsson keeps Schwartz guessing, creates space for himself by going into the corner. Then he hits Alex Tuch at the dot with a perfect backhand pass; Tuch's bid flutters to Marchessault for the slam dunk.
These are all good examples of Karlsson taking advantage of open ice or creating open ice for himself. But his puck skills have also manifested themselves in traffic.
This starts with a pretty backhand pass to Tuch with three Blues converging.
Then, watch Karlsson navigate through the Berglund and Kyle Brodziak forecheck. Brodziak misses by a mile. This individual effort leaves two Blues caught deep and results in an easy Vegas exit.
The St. Louis front office contingent was sitting behind me, and they were not pleased with Alex Steen coughing up the puck to Shea Theodore's pinch. Outstanding work by Theo.
Karlsson's contribution here is recovering the puck after Theodore's effort, and again, Blues converging, leaving it calmly on a plate for Marchessault to skate into.
Speaking of traffic, there was a lot of it last night for both sides.
"It looked like a playoff game tonight," noted Gerard Gallant. "There wasn't a whole lot of room out there. You had to fight to earn your space out there."
And fight, Karlsson did. It looked like he didn't lose a battle the whole night, and while that wasn't actually true -- I re-watched every Karlsson shift -- he was still amazing.
Chris Thorburn is coming from behind the net with the puck, but Karlsson is focused on Oskar Sundqvist in front. Sundqvist gains body position for a second, but look at Karlsson use his stick to gain the upper hand. This reduces Thorburn's options.
This might be my favorite Karlsson play of the game. Knowing Nate Schmidt can help, the Swede appears to simply use his body as a shield, keeping away a persistent Ivan Barbashev from the puck until Schmidt can clear.
Karlsson backchecks poor Steen, preventing his fellow Swede from gaining the zone.
"I had a pretty good game defensively and offensively," admitted Karlsson. "I was strong on the puck."
Another battle that Karlsson won routinely last night was on the draw, taking seven of nine. This isn't a normal strength of his -- he's won just 48.1 % of his faceoffs this year -- but it was that kind of night for the Swede.
This was Marchessault's overtime winner, and the key Karlsson play here was screening Allen. The St. Louis netminder admitted that he didn't see the shot at all.
But the play started with a Karlsson faceoff win at center, which is why he earned an assist.
Anyway, this is a 200-foot game which tells you, shooting % be damned, how legit Karlsson's emergence is. I don't think his teammates are the least bit surprised anymore.
"It's what I expect from him every night. He's been showing it all year," Marchessault noted. "Tonight was just a regular Karlsson night."
Minuses
It was another rocky start for the Golden Knights, their fourth in a row.
It was a tight game overall, but Vegas did suffer from some glaring coverage gaffes, such as this Berglund marker (and the aforementioned Schenn goal).
They look to firm up their total game tonight against San Jose.
***
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