Vegas Golden Knights On Tilt
The Las Vegas Golden Knights are playing with house money. Just like a blackjack player with a stack full of chips in front of him, the Las Vegas Golden Knights looked like they had a system to “beat the house”. To be fair, the Golden Knights organization and their fans should be extremely proud of their accomplishments in their first year of existence. They have beaten the odds to get to this point and they have shown a new market the incredible excitement of the NHL Playoffs while fighting their way to the Stanley Cup Finals. After winning Game 1 of the Cup Finals, the Golden Knights seemed like they were on the verge of pulling off the impossible. But just like the guy who thinks he can beat the house…the cards have turned cold on the Golden Knights. After dropping Game 4 to the Washington Capitals 6-2, the series now sits at 3-1 in favor of the Alex Ovechkin led Caps. It is not impossible that Las Vegas’ new kids in the league will find a way back from this deficit and win three straight en route to a Stanley Cup in their organizations’ first year…but I wouldn’t bet on it. In the end, the house always wins.
The Vegas Golden Knights trail the Washington Capitals, 3-1, in the Stanley Cup Final after their 6-2 defeat in Game 4 on Monday. It was a sloppy, ugly game for the Knights, who at times controlled every aspect of play save for the most important: the scoreboard.
The word “luck” will be thrown around a lot, given how many opportunities the Knights saw shut down, while the Capitals couldn’t miss a shot. But Braden Holtby was excellent for the Capitals, and you can’t discount that. By the end of the second period, the Knights had 22 shots on goal, 26 hits and three power play attempts, but zero goals.
Meanwhile, the Capitals, at that point, had 15 shots on goal, 22 hits, and two power plays, both of which yielded goals. And that was just going into the third period.
The Knights took better shots, had better opportunities and made the most of them, but the goalie play of Holtby was too on-point, while Marc-Andre Fleury has struggled all series against Washington.
The Knights finally scored with 14 minutes remaining in the third period, but it was too little, too late. They added a second tally with about seven minutes left in the game.
The Capitals will try and close out the Golden Knights in Game 5 on Thursday, from Vegas.
