Call it a journey into the unpredictable.
The Vegas Golden Knights departed for Western Canada on Sunday afternoon not knowing what to expect from themselves or the three opponents they’ll face this week.
Offensive consistency has been lacking from the Golden Knights’ game of late and they’ve been shutout in three of their last six outings while scoring just 11 goals over that same stretch.
Vegas was brilliant in October compiling an 11-0-1 mark but has been average in November owning a 5-5-1 mark. Over the last nine games, the Golden Knights have suffered six losses.
As for the opponents this week, it’s difficult to determine what the Vegas will encounter at stops in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.
The Flames have been battling adversity all season and are a sub-.500 team right now. But they’ve managed to defeat some high end teams such as their victory over Dallas on Saturday night.
Up in Edmonton, the Oilers are fighting for their season. With just six wins to date and an inability to defend, the Connor McDavid led Oilers are on the verge of having their playoff hopes extinguished. Certainly there’s lots of hockey left but at some point the hole can become too deep to get out of in a parity-heavy NHL.
The Canucks, on the other hand, are the surprise of the NHL season to date. Relying on top goaltending from Thatcher Demko and propelled by Norris Trophy candidate Quinn Hughes, Vancouver is just a point back of Vegas in the Pacific Division standings.
Vegas was shutout, 2-0, on Saturday by the visiting Arizona Coyotes and head coach Bruce Cassidy was pointed in his remarks following the game.
“We didn’t finish well, obviously. Early on, had some real good looks. Better work below the goal line. Basically, a teenager outworked our defense to get a puck to the front of the net in a very close game so that shouldn’t happen,” said Cassidy. “Opportunities on the power play, we were casual. Didn’t execute well enough where we could have helped ourselves offensively. Right now, we’re not scoring 5-on-5 so at least the powerplay helps and you can build momentum but that didn’t happen either. We didn’t give up much. That’s a good part of the game. We kept with our structure. Defensively, we just lost a puck battle low and then in front of our net. We didn’t win enough in front of their net…Some of our guys that we rely on for offense are not willing to do that right now and as a result, the offense is dried up and until they’re willing to get back to basics, I can’t sit here and tell you that we’re going to come out of it tomorrow or the next day because there’s a certain way to play and if the ice is available in front of you, you take it and make your plays. If it’s not, you go put it behind them and put it in a good spot and get it back and that’s been our team since my existence here and we’ve been pretty good. Right now, we’re not scoring and it’s a lot of guys that we rely on are not willing to do it so until they start, we’ve got to encourage them more to do it the right way and we’ll continue to do our part there but at the end of the day, once they go over the boards, that’s what’s required right now.”
Veteran defenseman Brayden McNabb is among the league leaders in blocked shots and hits. He plays the game as hard as anyone in the NHL and he doesn’t pick his spots. He’s full value night in and night out. On Sunday morning, he had his usual even-keeled perspective.
“It’s a bit of a lull. A bit of the schedule. Teams go through it during the year. We’re in the thick of our schedule. We’re struggling to score. And that’s a bit of getting to the dirty areas. The will to get there and bang in greasy goals. It doesn’t always have to be fancy. We definitely need to have the a mindset of getting to the middle. Getting to the goalie and getting out of our scoring slump,” said McNabb.
“We have a mature and veteran group. We’ve been through it. Teams go through these things. We understand when it’s ok but also when we need some urgency. You don’t want to let things slip for too long. There’s been a lot of good in our game. We’re not scoring. We had a great first period, if we score twice in that span, maybe it’s a different game and we’re sitting here talking about something else. So we need to find a way. Especially with the way things have been trending for us. We know we can do it. We have been creating chances and defensively, to be honest, we’ve been pretty good. We know what we have in this group. It’s about finding it. And we know we will.”
For his part, Cassidy had the group look at some video on Sunday morning before turning the practice over to skills coach Sean Ferrell.
“We had a video session this morning and we dealt with a couple things from Arizona. Breakouts below the goal line are a continuing challenge for every team in this league. I mean, we had two great chances to score to start the game yesterday,” said Cassidy. “Then we showed a lot of the scoring chances on the road trip. Five road games and we probably had 30 chances. Most of those were Grade-A’s we showed, and we scored one. So, which one is it, are we going to get down because we aren’t scoring or are we going to be excited because we are getting the opportunities and eventually, we will score? That was a bit of the messaging. We can’t get too down on ourselves because the opportunities are there. The one time we did score first on the trip was Dallas. We end up getting a win. You’re chasing the game, if not. Some of those chances were really good saves, some of them we were off net. Does a player ever want to miss the net with a Grade-A chance? That’s the tough part about coaching offense. They all want to score. It’s the best thing to do in hockey.”
The term “bear down,” has been getting thrown around the VGK dressing room a lot of late.
“It’s a reminder of the value and importance of bearing down on those and being ready for pucks around the front of the net. There were some tip-ins that I think we were just a little off on. Maybe, it was the first five minutes of the game, and we weren’t quite mentally into it, but that’s where we have to change our approach. Be a little bit more drilled down. Which is tough in November, especially coming off of our season. So, that was a reminder. Maybe we have to change our mindset a little bit and get into that uber-focused mode so that we can play with some leads. Then, play to our strengths which is using everybody all night.”
Cassidy is one of the most articulate people in hockey. And when he discusses a certain facet of the game, there’s always a formula to support his theory. He was asked Sunday if players can try harder to score.
“You can try harder to get to areas where you can score. Right? You can try harder to get to the inside, try harder to fight for a rebound, try harder to be the first on pucks on the forecheck or the second on the puck to create the next play. Yes, you can try harder,” he said. “Once the puck is on your stick, if you’re not trying hard to score, then you have a problem. You’re probably not going to be in the league very long. I think most guys are pretty focused on scoring once they are in the position to actually do it. It’s leading up to that process where we could try harder to work back for a puck, try harder to be available for an outlet. I always equate scoring with puck support unless you’ve got some individual talent who can just do it on his own. It’s usually a group of five somewhere on the ice. Or a forward line. It’s about puck support. So, how about we work harder to support the puck and then we’ll have it more in better places.”
This team and this coach spent a lot of time last season figuring one another out. In the end, they found a middle ground and then took off as one to pursue and capture the ultimate goal in hockey. Cassidy and McNabb are in accord on this being a bit of a tough stretch for a really good hockey team and not something more serious.
“The mood of the team is fine. We’ve got some guys that are down, that feel like they are not contributing because they aren’t scoring. There’s that part. You deal with that all year,” explained Cassidy. “We could have won ten in a row and there’s probably two or three guys that are upset they aren’t pitching in. You’re always balancing that. The mood of the team is good. There is a level of ‘I’d like to be able to help the team more by scoring.’ Yeah, a few guys are going through that. Maybe a few more then you’d like at once. That’s usually why teams end up in a bit of a tailspin. That or it goes the other way where you’re giving up six or seven a night. That’s not happening to us. Our team defense is pretty good. It was good again last night. It was good in Dallas, it was good in Philly, I thought, it was good in Washington for the most part. Our team defense has been pretty consistently good. The guys can hang their hats on that. It’s one of the reasons our record is what it is. We’ve allowed guys to play through scoring slumps. There’s that part of it, as well. We are going to talk about that, it’s a positive. It’s an identity of our team. No matter what we are still in the game, every game we’ve been in.”
