WINNIPEG -- Gerard Gallant has been strident in his defense of a Golden Knights penalty kill which allowed two goals in Game One.
From yesterday:
SP: How can you improve your penalty kill?
— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) May 13, 2018
Gallant: Is it bad? Because I think it's been really good.
SP: It HAS been really good.
GG: Well, thank you.#VegasBorn #WPGWhiteout
I wouldn't say the penalty kill wasn't good. They had two chances, scored on both of them. Great play and a deflection play. They had no other chances besides that.Overall, the penalty killing was fine.
Both Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Reilly Smith took ownership of Patrik Laine's wide-open snipe.
"The first [power play] goal, I made a mistake, which created a mistake for Reilly," said Bellemare.
"I have to do a better job of picking him up, going backdoor," offered Smith.
Smith was in the difficult position of having to spy on two top Winnipeg power play options -- Mark Scheifele's high slot tip and Laine's left wing one-timer.
Laine being that open in tight is a rarity, so it appears that the Golden Knights are passing that off as an isolated mistake.
However, there are some things that the Knights want to improve in relation to the second Jets power play goal, the Scheifele tip which made it 4-1.
The Byfuglien blast from the middle is the most common shot on Winnipeg's power play.
"We have to eat Byfuglien's puck," acknowledged Bellemare. "We can do that better."
Here, I wonder if Smith has been discouraged from laying himself out because of his importance to the overall line-up? Gallant has noted that he's not always thrilled to see William Karlsson, Smith's PK partner, blocking shots.
Beyond that, Bellemare stressed, "You have to make sure you're close enough to Scheifele, so he doesn't have full control of his stick."
He added, "The D were talking about being a little more in front of Stastny, instead of behind."
These things are related. I'm not assessing any blame -- Bellemare noted that Deryk Engelland was stepping up to block the shot and/or handle Scheifele as Byfuglien's shot was approaching -- but perhaps a little higher on Paul Stastny, who's got net front, and Engelland might be able to at least bother Scheifele.
Our clip starts from low to high -- Blake Wheeler is going back up to Byfuglien. That's the moment when perhaps Engelland should creep toward Scheifele just a bit, as Stastny is a little less of priority when Byfuglien has the puck up on the blueline.
Obviously, when Wheeler was down low along the wall, Engelland has to stay low and front Stastny. This is where Engelland should be at that moment:
We'll see how the Vegas penalty kill adjusts tonight.
I'm also curious to see if there's any change in how the Golden Knights play the Jets power play breakout, which almost wholly consists of Byfuglien as the primary puck carrier coming behind four Jets who are swinging to gain the line.
Nate Schmidt has stressed not allowing the Winnipeg man advantage to even get set up; perhaps pressuring Byfuglien more might help. That might be too radical a change to consider at this point though.
On Winnipeg entry, Schmidt also noted, "We gave them a little too much time to be able to make a play there."
Penalty-killing is a great deal of perspiration, so we'll see if the Knights have a little more pep to their step tonight.
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It was an interesting morning skate -- while Gallant refused to divulge details, Oscar Lindberg is probably out (he was skating with the scratches at the end of skate).
Perhaps Tomas Nosek and Tomas Tatar are in -- Ryan Carpenter skated in Lindberg's spot on the third line during skate, Nosek would fit the fourth line, and Tatar worked out on the second power play unit in place of David Perron.
Perron was nowhere to be seen at morning skate.
Is the team's leading assist man hurt? Or was he just having a maintenance day? We'll find out shortly!
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