There have been enough comments, analysis, and opinion on the effectiveness of the Golden Knights and their rise to being one win from the Stanley Cup final. Make no mistake this success is not a fluke, not in this series nor in the previous two and for the 82 games of the regular season. It is unlikely and improbable given the team's formation less than a calendar year before.
Today the Jets are on the brink. They have no choice other than to win the game, win the next one, and then come back to Winnipeg and win the final game. That's just like Vegas has done since game two. It can happen, and Tampa Bay is proving it can happen too.
The Jets have done everything to drive play by taking more shots and shot attempts than the Golden Knights. They have had more scoring chances at 5vs5 and in all situations. The Jets have had more high dangers attempts in 5vs5 and all situations and they have generally been the better team aside from two key areas: shooting percentage and save percentage and PDO.
Give credit where credit is due to the Golden Knights and their players- they are perhaps doing God's work if you believe in the phrase 'make your own luck'. They are shooting 11.69% at 5vs5 and 11.11% in all situations. The Jets are at 5% and 6.92% respectively. It gets more telling though as when you get to the save percentage it looks like this:
Fleury 5vs5 .950
Fleury AS .938
Hellebuyck 5vs5 .883
Hellebuyck AS .889
PDO looks like this
5vs5 1.067 vs .9333
AS 1.042 vs .9580
It's not pretty for the opposition but it's a hell of a run. In fact there is no team left in the post season who has a PDO within 30 basis points of Vegas. It's basically absurd and a massive jump from their season total of 1.005
If you want to look at goals here's where the trouble is coming:
Look at that cluster in front of Hellebuyck. Why is this happening is anyone's guess but give credit to something Vegas is doing- basically playing with a tenacity and drive few teams are able to match. Here's a great example of how this tenacity happens:
Here's a very bad trend in this series for the #NHLJets. In all four of the games thus far, Vegas has scored within 1:28 of a Winnipeg goal four times: Game 1: 35 sec Game 2: 88 sec Game 3: 12 sec Game 4: 43 sec#VGK
How many of those goals are in the cluster in front of the crease or in it?
Weather the storm and match the tenacity- that should be the only thing the Jets think about today as they prepare to face elimination and rise above it, at least for one more game.
And as Steve Jobs would say, just one more thing...
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