Golden Knights’ Defining Moments: The 8-game winning streak

By Justin Emerson

Friday, April 17, 2020 | 2 a.m.

The Golden Knights really needed a win or two. Or eight.

The season wasn’t looking great for Vegas in mid-February, nine games into a tenure with a new coach that hadn't changed the fortunes of the season. A lot of hockey was left, but the Golden Knights needed a spark.

That’s what they got, starting a long home stretch with an eight-game winning streak that vaulted them from the playoff bubble to the top of the race.

Over the next couple weeks, the Las Vegas Sun will look back at pivotal moments throughout the season. The series will cover everything from the obvious turning points to more obscure ones that went by without much fanfare at the time but turned out to be important.

Today we look at the eight-game winning streak in February.

Where the Golden Knights were

Before the winning streak started, the Golden Knights had won just four of their first nine games under coach Peter DeBoer. The Wild shellacked them in Minnesota in one of the Golden Knights’ worst performances of the season that left them tied with two other teams for third in the Pacific Division.

With slightly less than a third of the season left, the Golden Knights had yet to sustain success for any significant period of time. Vegas’ longest win streak had been two sets of four-game stretches. Those were leveled out by losing streaks of five and four games.

They might have looked like an elite team statistically, but they were running out of time to show it on the ice.

What happened

The Golden Knights rallied from down two goals to beat the Blues in overtime on Feb. 13. It was just the second time all year they had won a game when they were down two at any point, with the first also coming against the Blues. It was a great win over the defending Stanley Cup champions, and the Golden Knights followed it with a 1-0 win over the Islanders two days later and then a 3-2 victory against the Capitals.

They notched perhaps their signature win of the season on Feb. 20, a 5-3 victory over the Lightning to run the winning streak to four. They swept their five-game homestand with a win over the Panthers, beat the Ducks in overtime on the road, and returned home with a shutout win over the Oilers and a 4-2 decision against the Sabres.

The Golden Knights rattled off eight wins in a row, matching the franchise record set in 2017-18. It catapulted them to first in the division with a six-point lead and tied for third in the Western Conference. It was the run that Vegas had been waiting for all season.

How it was received

There were different points of the streak that perked eyebrows to the idea something special was happening. For me, it was after the Florida win because that meant polishing off a perfect five-game homestand against consistently strong opposition.

They were a runaway favorite to win the Pacific after beating the Sabres, a stark contrast from when they lost to Buffalo a month earlier and fired coach Gerard Gallant the next morning.

How much it mattered looking back

On the ice, this was the most important stretch of hockey all season. It proved the product could finally match the analytics.

All season, advanced stats like Corsi, expected goals and other possession-based numbers suggested that the Golden Knights were one of the best teams in the league even as they hung around .500 for most of the season.

Before the winning streak started, it was clear that it was a make-or-break stretch for Vegas. Almost every team the Golden Knights faced were in the playoff hunt, giving them a chance to show where they fit in among the NHL’s top teams. Their issues in beating good teams had been well-documented — former coach Gerard Gallant famously blew up at a reporter in January for asking about it — but they rose to the occasion.

It’s not a stretch to say those eight games resurrected the Golden Knights’ season. It mattered more than any other set of games all season.

And if the season resumes, it will be a big reason why the Golden Knights would resume atop their division.