Vegas Golden Knights’ Paul Stastny (26) celebrates a goal by teammate Max Pacioretty past Vancouver Canucks goalie Jacob Markstrom (25) as Christopher Tanev looks on (8) during the first period of an NHL Western Conference Stanley Cup playoff game, Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020, in Edmonton, Alberta. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)
Published Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020 | 10:15 p.m.
Updated Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020 | 11:44 p.m.
During the regular season, the Golden Knights entered the third period trailing 28 times. They won just four of those games.
So far in the postseason, they were losing heading into the third period five times, and have come back to win three of them, the latest a 5-3 victory Sunday over the Vancouver Canucks in Game 4 of their second-round playoff series at Rogers Place in Edmonton. Vegas scored three goals on the first five shots of the frame to erase a second-intermission deficit and take a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven game series.
“We just feel like we have too much depth, especially on a back-to-back, to not come back and play for a full 60 minutes the way we know we’re capable of,” Golden Knights forward Max Pacioretty said. “That could be the difference tonight.”
That depth was out in full force in Game 4, especially when it came to the forwards and how Vegas deployed them.
Reilly Smith’s 17:10 minutes of ice time led the Vegas forwards, followed by Paul Stastny. But next was Nicolas Roy, Alex Tuch and Chandler Stephenson — none of whom play on the top two lines. Other than Ryan Reaves and William Carrier, the least-used forward was Pacioretty, who scored two goals.
The Golden Knights like to talk about being able to roll lines, and not having to stack their top lines to the point of exhaustion.
It’s doubly important on the second night of a back-to-back, where it looked like the Canucks ran out of gas in the third period. Vancouver forwards Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller and Bo Horvat all surpassed 20 minutes of ice time on Sunday after doing the same Saturday.
“We had more fresh people in the lineup than they did, and I feel like that we have more depth than them throughout our lineup,” Vegas coach Peter DeBoer said. “I knew that would eventually pay off.”
It wasn’t just that Vegas was able to use all its forwards, it’s that all of them chipped in. Pacioretty scored twice and assisted on a William Karlsson goal and Stephenson scored on a fourth-line shift.
Nate Schmidt’s game-tying goal in the third period was set up by a shift from Tuch, Roy and Nick Cousins that pinned the Canucks in their zone and didn’t let them out. Vancouver defenseman Tyler Myers was on the ice for 1:49 before the puck went in.
And Schmidt’s goal was even assisted by Jon Merrill making his first appearance of the postseason. It was Merrill’s first playoff point in 16 career games.
“When a guy comes into the lineup, he doesn’t feel like he’s got the weight on his shoulders to try to carry or try to do something out of his skillset or realm of what he can do,” Schmidt said. “Jonny’s a guy who hasn’t played in six months and he steps into a game and I thought he played great. In the third period when I scored, I was more excited that Jonny slides it over than anything.”
The Golden Knights scored first and took a 2-1 lead into the second period, only to see Vancouver score twice to make it 3-2, the first lead change of the series. It was a pivotal moment for the Golden Knights to see how they would respond in front a goalie who was playing for the first time in weeks.
“Guys have to want to play for you and I knew with (Marc-Andre Fleury) in there tonight, I knew the guys would play hard for him,” DeBoer said. “And you could tell going into the third that they were going to make a push.”
Fleury had not appeared in a game since Game 3 of the Chicago series 15 days ago. He joked that he felt that way early in the game but settled in nicely, particularly when Vancouver turned up the pressure in the third. Fleury stopped the final 12 shots he saw.
The Vegas skaters meanwhile came out with three goals on their first five shots in the third period, locking in a victory for Fleury, moving his record to 3-0 since the season’s restart. Fleury made 27 saves to pick up his 81st career postseason win, moving him into sole possession of sixth in NHL history.
“Even if he’s not starting, he’s a huge part of our room, so when he gets in there, guys are pretty fired up,” Schmidt said. “It didn’t look like he missed a step. When he’s on his game, he’s starting to be Flower and he’s buzzing around making big saves, it gets our bench fired up and just excited to go get (a win) for him.”
