Jon Merrill’s wild ride caps Golden Knights’ victory over the Flyers

By Justin Emerson

Thursday, Jan. 2, 2020 | 11 p.m.

So much came out of the Golden Knights victory on Thursday that it is tough to cover it all.

There was Max Pacioretty cementing his case to be an All-Star this season with a pair of goals; there was a successful 6-on-3 penalty kill at the end of the game; there was a four-goal outburst in the first period.

And we’ll get to all that, but the story begins with Jon Merrill. He’s been a defenseman his entire career and he thinks the last time he played forward was back in his junior hockey days a decade and a half ago. But a last-minute inactive forced him into forward duty, and all he did was score a goal to help the Golden Knights beat the Philadelphia Flyers 5-4 at T-Mobile Arena.

“Anytime I'm in the lineup I'll do anything for this team, whether it's forward, goalie, ‘D,’ whatever it is — I'll do anything for this team,” Merrill said. “We're all hockey players and I think when you're out there and you're having fun, your instincts just kick in and I think that's what happened a lot tonight.”

The Golden Knights were down two forwards coming into the game. Tomas Nosek was away from the team for the birth of his child, and Vegas recalled Nicolas Roy to take his place. They were ready for Nosek’s absence, but they weren’t ready for Jonathan Marchessault’s absence. He took the ice briefly for an optional skate this morning then left before practice began. He was out with an “illness,” according to coach Gerard Gallant.

That left the Golden Knights with 11 healthy forwards and seven defensemen, meaning they could play everyone in position and rotate through the missing forward spot as some teams do, or they could play someone out of position. They chose the latter, changing the plan from scratching Merrill to playing him on the left wing. He found out about noon he was going to skate up front.

He played 9:11 of ice time, predictably tied for the least time with Roy, but made it count. On his third shift of the game, he picked up a rebound on a Roy wraparound try, pushed it to his backhand and slid it into the net. It was, as the hockey gods would have it, his first of the season.

“You’re so happy for him but he’s going to be ripping on us for the rest of the year talking about how easy it is to play forward,” Pacioretty said. “I feel so happy for a guy that can contribute like that in a situation where he just came to the rink and said, ‘I’m just going to come out and have fun.’”

Pacioretty, too, had quite a night himself. He scored Vegas’ second and fourth goals, one on the power play and one at even strength. He upped his goal total to a team-leading 18 and points to a team-best 43. His 0.98 points per game is the best of his career, and deserving of an All-Star nod.

Pacioretty has never been to an All-Star game and would have been a solid option had he been Vegas’ representative. He’s up for the fan voting in the Last Men In, where he has a double-digit point lead over the other Pacific Division choices.

“I felt maybe sometime in my career I probably should’ve been there, but if it happens or not, either way I can’t control what happens,” Pacioretty said. “But whether you get in or not, it doesn’t change the fact that we have an entire half-season and more to play some strong hockey. It's kind of background noise I try to block out.”

Pacioretty had one of Vegas’ goals in the first, a four-score frame that set the tone for the wild game it was. The Golden Knights surrendered the first goal, scored the next three and led 4-2 after the period. They went up 5-2, then Sean Couturier scored at the end of the second and the start of the third to make it 5-4 and set up an ending that was foreshadowed by the beginning.

First Reilly Smith inadvertently flipped the puck out of the defensive zone and over the glass, an automatic two minutes for delay of game. After 51 seconds on the power play the Flyers pulled goalie Carter Hart, then when Deryk Engelland went to the box for cross-checking, the Golden Knights were looking down the barrel of a 6-on-3 penalty kill for 43 seconds.

“It was a weird one for sure,” defenseman Brayden McNabb said.

McNabb was the star of the penalty kill, laying out for an enormous block 12 seconds in, then tipping the puck out of the zone moments later, congratulating himself quickly with an ever-so-slight fist bump. Once the clock hit triple zeroes, Mark Stone made sure he was the first one to congratulate him.

“That 6-on-3 at the end was awesome, the guys played their butts off and got a big kill there,” goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. “It's such a good feeling at the end when you win those tough battles.”

It was a fun hockey game from start to finish, but the takeaway is the night scratch-to-forward Merrill had. He didn’t want to grade himself — he said he’ll leave that to the writers — but who knows how this story could end. We know he has the defensive prowess. Maybe he could end up in the running for the Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward. A joke of course, but Merrill was willing to play along.

“You never know,” Merrill said. “It’s only one game but if I can put a few more together like that I might be in the running.”