Going into the Stanley Cup Final, all the talk was about Marc-Andre Fleury's Conn Smythe-worthy work. But last night, it would be Braden Holtby with the save of the series.
Going into the second period, all the talk was about Evgeny Kuznetsov's injury. But last night, it would be Lars Eller with the performance of the series.
Washington has stolen home ice from Vegas; we're tied at one apiece heading to DC.
Winning Play
A couple minutes after Kuznetsov went down with an upper body injury, Eller stepped up. Or actually, stepped back.
Off the 4v4 draw, what a pass by Andre Burakovsky.
He's falling, but has the presence of mind to pass it not where Michal Kempny is, but where Kempny could be. On the NBC broadcast, Eddie Olzyck seemed to fault both Erik Haula and Jonathan Marchessault for this cross-slot pass, but I don't agree. Haula, who fell off the faceoff himself, has the most likely pass to Kempny covered -- it's just a great play by Burakovsky to put it in an area where Kempny can reach for it. Meanwhile, Marchessault is watching the point, which is what he should be doing.
Keep your eyes on Eller though: Off the draw, he shades toward the goal line. Colin Miller has him covered there; Miller is facing out toward Kempny. But then Eller pushes back, away from the goal line, Miller, and Marc-Andre Fleury, without Miller the wiser.
When Kempny walks down, Miller turns toward where Eller was -- and perhaps Haula could've gotten lower to stop this cross-slot pass -- but regardless, Eller isn't there anymore.
The pass goes behind Miller, which is on him, but crafty work by Eller to find the soft spot.
“The guy was by himself in front of me, so that’s my guy and I have to take care of him,” said Fleury of Kempny. “A lot of the time, they try to wait for me and then go backdoor by passing it across, but I have confidence in my defense."
Pluses
Fantastic timing by Shea Theodore on his goal:
Right when Tuch steps in front of Holtby, Theodore wings it. Great double-screen by #VegasBorn. Holtby looking right, Theodore goes against grain with shot too pic.twitter.com/sydEbF2GTh
While the Golden Knights piled on 15 shots in the final frame, nine of them came on an extended power play, which also included a minute-long 5v3.
There was exactly one shot on goal recorded during the two-man advantage, which is unacceptable.
"We just need to be more selfish and shoot the puck," stressed Jonathan Marchessault. "The plays were there."
Marchessault knows what he's talking about. With 15 seconds left on the 5v3, with no shots recorded, perhaps frustrated, he took matters into his own hands.
This would lead to a Miller shot -- the only official 5v3 shot on goal -- and a flurry as the two-man advantage was expiring.
Notably, the Golden Knights only completed one cross-slot pass during the 5v3 -- these are important because they get the goaltender moving side to side, opening him up, which makes it easier to score -- a Marchessault low to high pass to Theodore early on the two-man advantage, which the blueliner didn't one time.
Of course, you want the perfect play -- there's so much space out there -- but if they're not there, fire away -- because related, there's so much space out there.
Beyond this failed power play, the Knights recorded just four 5v5 shots in the third period. The team with the one-goal lead had six.
In fact, there was a 10:20 stretch where Vegas did not record a shot.
"We were checking with our feet. We had numbers, we had good sticks. We were hard on the puck," noted Barry Trotz. "We kept pushing it north, if you will, making good decisions with the puck. We were very, very diligent in all areas of our game."
While Trotz didn't single out Washington's neutral zone defensive play, I thought it was terrific.
In particular, the Capitals did a good job of taking the middle of the ice away, which forces the puck carrier into a less-than-optimal offensive decision, be it a dump-in or a dangerous pass toward the middle.
William Karlsson has the puck, but nowhere to go. There's a layer of defense standing up at the blueline; there's a backchecker, Jakub Vrana, closing in on him and taking away the middle; there's a trailing Cap, Nicklas Backstrom, who's covering the drop pass.
This is a familiar Washington defensive posture, as I highlighted in my series preview.
Karlsson tries for Nate Schmidt cruising up the gut, but Vrana's stick says no.
This time, Devante Smith-Pelly is discouraging Colin Miller from doing anything up the middle.
Miller feeds Marchessault, who's rocketing up the left wing. The Caps are completing a line change, so their defense isn't set -- regardless, Smith-Pelly trails to take away a reset, Jay Beagle screams toward Marchessault to force a decision, there's a defensive wall hanging back -- Marchessault tries to chip it past the defense, but ultimately, Washington wins the puck.
Beagle is the F1, taking away the middle from Theodore. Theodore hits Haula going up the left wing. Eller, the F2, closes on Haula to force a decision with the puck; there are three Caps standing up along the blueline, which encourages a dump-in.
Washington has five excellent skaters on their blueline, and two of them go to retrieve. Dmitry Orlov wins it; Matt Niskanen gives him a split-second by bothering James Neal with his stick. Really crafty play by the veteran defenseman.
Honestly, this is a low-percentage play by Miller.
Nonetheless, perhaps Vegas should try a couple more of these coordinated breakouts? This was the only four-man 5v5 breakout that I saw from them in this period.
The 1-1-3 has three defenders as the back layer. On a dump-in, in most cases, those three defenders will outnumber the forecheckers, at least at first.
So why not send three forecheckers in immediately? Nate Schmidt bypasses F1 (Backstrom) and F2 (Vrana) with a quick up to the opposite blueline, off Cody Eakin's stick. This is timed with Ryan Carpenter and Tuch entering the zone with speed.
Kempny -- once again, remember that Washington has a very mobile defensive unit -- beats Tuch to the loose puck.
But it's a good idea.
The other idea is simply beating the Caps to loose pucks on dump-ins and finishing the rare chances you get. It was a tightly-contested game -- much closer to what we should expect from the rest of the series -- and that solution is just as likely as anything more creative.
The Knights were close a couple times in the final frame -- good forechecking led to Neal and Haula shanks.
So "Don't shank, do score!" How's that for a pre-game speech? Anyway, we'll see what Vegas has up their sleeve this Saturday.
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