James Neal had a net empty as the feeling in San Jose and Winnipeg, where they watch Washington finally putting the Golden Knights in their place wondering, “Why couldn’t we do that?”

No hard reason really. Neal had all day to turn, aim, and hit the post, and soon Vegas was down 3-0 and not knowing what hit it; turnaround being fair play for the dazed expressions on the Jets’ faces as they exited in a fast five in the Western Conference final.

Four games into a Stanley Cup final, it would be nice to observe that the superior team is imposing its will and reality finally setting in on the club out of nowhere. But the Caps aren’t exactly the ’72 Bruins, just a good team hardened by defeat that finally, and deservedly, is having some fine fortune.

Six goals on only 23 shots with Marc-Andre Fleury not fanning on a one is hardly dominance, but opportunism. Always, the playoffs are about opportunism. With the Capitals just one win from their first Cup, we only hope they struck a deal less binding with Mr. Applegate than did Joe Boyd in Damn Yankees. Just that that one good year at last probably is all they are going to get.

Notwithstanding a short Vegas rally of two goals in the third thanks to a dumb Evgeny Kuznetsov penalty and a bad Brett Connolly turnover, the Golden Knights suddenly look flummoxed after three rounds of extraordinary cool. Just when we began to believe that the team that finally burst the expansionists’ bubble would need a pneumatic drill to do it, Gerard Gallant’s team appears to be going easily, outscored 9-3 in the last two games.

The first period wasn’t, as Gallant insisted after the game, the Golden Knights’ best of the series. But it was pretty good for 10 minutes and yet they would up down 3-0 at the end of 20. After three rounds, actually an entire season, of getting the big save and the equilibrium-restoring goal at just the right time, somebody had to be dealing off the bottom of the deck to have luck this bad.

No longer are these cool card counters from Vegas beating a 101-year-old house. Their ties are askew, the poker faces in anguish and they are letting T.J. Oshie see them sweat. Almost perfectly in position for two months, they now need a compass to find their own end. Tomas Nosek took an unthinkable big skate on the first goal, Shea Theodore and Deryk Engelland are giving away the puck, chasing it, and losing.

Meanwhile, the three goals in 9:45 followed that Neal miss, another post by Alex Tuch, and preceded further shots off the iron by Brayden McNabb and Thomas Tatar. Even Lionel Hampton never played the xylophone with such resonance, music to the ears in D.C.

The Kings, Sharks and Jets couldn’t pick their way through center ice with a Geiger counter, now it has become a highway, the opposition no longer under a Golden Knight-cast spell, quite the opposite now with Oshie having climbed under their skins. The Caps are kicking the puck onto their stick and going up high while the Knights are going out of their minds. When Smith-Pelly swooping in like Teemu Selanne, this 3-1 series lead has become all about confidence, not really anything else much worth noting.

Four rounds always have been great separators, more often than not guaranteeing the cream eventually would rise to the top. Used to be the better surviving squad inevitably would impose its will. But when a 31st team can do what the Golden Knights have done, there is no clearly better club any more in any round, perhaps just one a little more battle tested and filling up with confidence while it drains away from the opposition.

Things changed when? With that diving stick save in Game Two by Braden Holtby on Tuch to preserve the win? When Brooks Orpik scored his third playoff goal in 147 games to give Washington a badly needed lead in Game Two? Whenever William Karlsson began to get lost, like Patrik Laine did in the conference final? Such is the standard round-to-round playoff touché.

Maybe the turning point came a year ago, when the Caps went out miserably in a home Game Seven with a deeper team than this one, making them realize that more sacrifice was needed. Maybe there was a sudden twist to the plot when Smith-Pelly was dumped by a Devils team that missed the playoffs by 25 points or with a Holtby wakeup call when Phillip Grubauer started the playoffs. Or, when Kuznetsov, who has 31 points in 23 playoff games, only got to play with Alex Ovechkin after Nicklas Backstrom got hurt.

Maybe there is another turning point yet to come from the Golden Knights’ anger at Oshie for one of those eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head-oops-didn’t–see-you-there hits to the mush that would have made Bobby Clarke proud. Underdogs more than ever now, perhaps Vegas will find a comfort zone again with everyone writing them off, there being a substantial history of stay-alive Game Five victories to give them hope. Maybe a first goal of the game they were uncannily getting all spring will snap them back into the mindset that sustained them.

“Everyone needs to relax, play our game the way we know we can,” predictably said Fleury. Right now, though, it doesn’t look like the Golden Knights remember how.

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