Golden Knights shut out by Canucks, series heads to Game 7

By Justin Emerson

Published Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020 | 9:16 p.m.

Updated Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020 | 10:45 p.m.

It’s been 855 days — 32 postseason games — since the last time the Golden Knights were shut out in a playoff game. That streak ended Thursday.

The Golden Knights’ scoring touch has evaporated with just one goal in their last two games, turning what was a 3-1 series advantage over the Vancouver Canucks into a Game 7 following a 4-0 loss Thursday night. Vegas spent a lot of time looking at the ceiling in frustration after another shot was denied, and is running out of time to figure out why.

Game 7 is set for 6 p.m. Friday. It will be the second Game 7 in Golden Knights history after last year’s first-round loss to the San Jose Sharks. That series was also 3-1.

“We’ve got to score some goals,” forward Mark Stone said bluntly when asked what needs to change.

Once again, the Golden Knights controlled possession and were the better team. Once again it didn’t matter. They were stymied for the second game in a row by Thatcher Demko, the rookie goalie who has saved the Canucks’ season and sowed seeds of doubt for the Golden Knights.

Demko was marvelous in Game 5 on Tuesday, saving 42 of Vegas’ 43 shots to keep his team in the game long enough for them to find the game-winner. He outdid himself on Thursday, pitching a 48-save shutout, the most shots the Golden Knights have ever had in a game without scoring.

The Golden Knights were off their game early on, and the Canucks did to them in the first three minutes what Vegas had done to the Canucks for most of the series. Vancouver registered the first eight shot attempts of the game and scored at the 2:50 mark of the first, a Jake Virtanen wrap-around that went five-hole on Robin Lehner.

Vegas found its sea legs after that and beginning in the second period turned the pressure up to 11. In the final 40 minutes of the game, the Golden Knights outshot the Canucks 39-15 and led in shot attempts 55-26. The Golden Knights finished with 90 attempts in the game, the third time this postseason they have eclipsed that mark. They are 0-3 in those games.

“I thought we were better tonight, I thought our chances were better, I thought we got to the front of the net better,” coach Peter DeBoer said. “But we still have to find a way.”

While the Golden Knights were ramping up the pressure, the Canucks were absorbing it and waiting for their counterstrike, which came early in the third period. Vegas spent the early games in the series picking on Quinn Hughes, the Calder Trophy finalist as league Rookie of the Year and Vancouver’s best defenseman, but that came to a screeching halt on the Canucks’ second and third goals.

Hughes alluded to an injury early in the series with Vancouver reporters postgame — “I don’t want to disclose anything, but I’m feeling better now,” he said — and looked plenty healthy in Game 6.

He made the second goal happen, stealing the puck in the neutral zone and taking it all the way around the Vegas net and back to his own blue line. He dished to J.T. Miller, who fired through traffic and into the net for a 2-0 lead 1:03 into the third period. Hughes added a goal of his own at 8:16 to effectively end the game. Bo Horvat’s empty-netter at 15:22 removed any doubt.

It’s not a consolation at this point how much better Vegas was or how much it deserved to win. The Golden Knights generated 63% of the expected goals by Natural Stat Tricks’ measure and would win 83% of the time under the same situations by Moneypuck’s formula. Vegas has dominated all the underlying stats that would predict long-term success.

The thing about those numbers is that you can lean on them more in the regular season when there is an 82-game sample. Sure they were the better team, but a 24-year-old goalie and a 20-year-old defensemen were the best players on the ice, and in a seven-game series, the Canucks are one game away from pulling off the upset.

It comes down to one game on a Friday night in Edmonton, 21 hours after Vegas’ most lopsided loss of the playoffs, to determine whether Vegas will either put to bed the ghosts of last season’s collapse or be haunted by them for another offseason.

“It’s nice that we're going to have this opportunity tomorrow,” forward Max Pacioretty said. “You don’t want to sit around your room in the bubble thinking about what went wrong to get to this point.

“That being said, get some sleep, show up to the rink tomorrow energized and ready for a Game 7. This is what you dream about. We should be excited for the challenge."