With their boot on the Sharks' necks, the Golden Knights let up, allowing San Jose to even up the series in a 4-3 double-overtime thriller.
5:13 into the second overtime, Logan Couture fired the power play game-winner past Marc-Andre Fleury.
"We have a pass across the seam," acknowledged Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. "It's almost an impossible save to make for Flower."
At first, Cody Eakin's stick is properly extended to help prevent against the cross-ice seam pass.
Then it isn't.
What happened? The answer is in Kevin Labanc's eyes:
He sells the shot so well, never looking at Couture once, that Eakin falls for it. I credit Labanc more than I fault Eakin.
It's a brilliant bit of playmaking from the San Jose sophomore.
Meanwhile, this power play came just 1:30 after Vegas had killed another Sharks PP.
Bellemare and Fleury wouldn't admit to any extra fatigue for the penalty killers because of the back-to-back PKs. That said, an in-game rest might have been in order.
However, the Golden Knights didn't have a timeout, as they had burnt their only timeout earlier on an arguably ill-advised challenge of Brent Burns's second goal.
Pluses
Brilliance by Karlsson. First, his pinch prevents Burns clear. Donskoi tracks back, but then Karlsson mugs him with stick check.
— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) April 29, 2018
Puck goes back up high, Donskoi loses Karlsson, slam dunk.
This goal is all Karlsson & it has nothing to do with putting the puck in the net. pic.twitter.com/UxT09gFtHg
For many Golden Knights fans, these two goaltender interference calls will define the night:
Brent Burns gives the Sharks their first lead of the series pic.twitter.com/8pNIRfQtSk
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) April 29, 2018
Hold the phone. This one's under review for goaltender interference. You be the judge. pic.twitter.com/HwLq9UGv0U
— Ryan Quigley (@RP_Quigs) April 29, 2018
The Burns goal, which made it 3-2 Sharks, looked pretty clear-cut -- Colin Miller pushed Timo Meier into Fleury. That's a good goal.
When asked, Gallant didn't furnish a further explanation as to why he challenged.
The Marchessault goal, however, ignited a league-wide divide. Kerry Fraser and Brent Johnson, among others, came out against the final call, while Ray Ferraro and obviously the Situation Room, among others, defended it.
Explanation of Situation Room Initiated Challenge at 16:58 of overtime in the @SanJoseSharks/@GoldenKnights game. https://t.co/ghqq8TPuzM #SJSvsVGK #StanleyCup
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) April 29, 2018
Rule 69.1 states that goals should be disallowed if "an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper's ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal."
It's a tough call.
I think both Jones and Marchessault have a right to that space, actually. Most of Jones's body is within his crease and the part that isn't (the blocker) is naturally outside of the crease; Jones is in his natural position. Meanwhile, Marchessault is cruising in front of the net in a natural path, outside of the crease.
There's clear contact between Marchessault and Jones; the goaltender is impeded from resetting and making the save.
Despite some innuendo of it, there's no clear evidence of Brenden Dillon forcing Marchessault into Jones. Same goes for the theory that Dillon's skate struck Jones or that Jones was trying to sell the contact.
Ultimately, I'm with the league here. Marchessault's contact, while unintentional and in a 50-50 area, did give him an undue advantage. It's incidental contact which prevented Jones from doing his job.
Besides these two calls which went against Vegas, San Jose had the upper hand for most of the contest, especially in the middle frame, where they scored three goals and outchanced the Knights at evens 6-3.
"We didn’t show up for 45 minutes tonight," stressed Gallant. "We didn’t play our game tonight."
***
++++I AM CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR ADVERTISERS! If you, or anyone you know would be interested in placing an ad here at HockeyBuzz, then send me a PM!++++