LAS VEGAS – The phrase "Vegas Strong" was born out of the tragedy that shook this city on Oct. 1.
But it has come to embody the Golden Knights as well.
In examining a season that nobody could have expected, the biggest thing that stands out is how little duress the expansion cousin has endured. They felt it early – when Marc-Andre Fleury, and Malcolm Subban, and Oscar Dansk were injured in quick succession – but Vegas somehow navigated that goaltending quagmire thanks to fourth-stringer Maxime Lagace.
Looking back, it offered a hint of what was to come. The Golden Knights have not lost more than three games in a row all season. Now leading the Washington Capitals 1-0 in the Stanley Cup Final, they are three wins from authoring a story unlike anything the NHL has seen in 100-plus years of business.
"This is the magic of sports," said commissioner Gary Bettman. "Anything can happen."
Where the Golden Knights have been particularly impressive during these playoffs is responding to down moments. They have scored within two minutes of their opponent in five of the last six games.
On Monday, it came just 91 seconds after Tom Wilson had given Washington a 4-3 lead early in the third period. That’s when Ryan Reaves barrelled towards the crease, cross-checking John Carlson to the ice in the process, and roofed a shot over Braden Holtby.
Any momentum lost was immediately restored and the Golden Knights found a way to pull a 6-4 victory out of a topsy-turvy Cup opener.
"Nothing rattles us. If we get a goal scored on us or we have a couple of bad shifts, I think the next line is ready to pick the team up," Reaves said Tuesday. "We’ve done a good job of that throughout the playoffs if you look at some of the past games. A goal is scored in the next shift, we go and get a big goal. I think our resilience is a big part of it."
It is a crucial element of success in the playoff pressure-cooker. No team cruises through two months of big games without having to weather a storm or two along the way.
The Golden Knights used a series of quick-response goals to keep the Winnipeg Jets at bay in the Western Conference final and have confidence that it can continue against Washington.
They’ve earned the right to feel that way after winning 64 of the 98 games they’ve played in franchise history. Remember that this is a team that opened its inaugural campaign with victories in eight of the first nine games and wound up winning the Pacific Division.
Here we are almost in June and they’ve gone on a mind-bending 13-3 run through the playoffs. The Golden Knights have formed an identity through those experiences. When something goes wrong – like blowing two leads against the Capitals in Game 1 – they have a belief that the tide will soon turn back their way.
"I think we have a group of guys in the room that have character," said forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. "There’s nobody putting their head down and feeling sorry for themselves. Everybody is ready for the next shift. When there is a goal, usually one or two guys right away step up and say ‘My bad.’
"Yesterday we talked a lot about how we came back, but they came back time after time. It was fun to see us doing it also. Because the way they showed their heart, [it] could have been a tough break our way and we could have put our heads down, but instead we rise to the occasion and kept playing our role and doing whatever we needed to do to win the game."
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It’s a nice asset to have when you get in a series as tight as this one. The Capitals have formed a similarly tough exterior while slaying some of their past playoff demons and are a good bet to summon a strong performance in Game 2 on Wednesday night.
Vegas will be ready for it.
By any metric, the opener was basically a saw-off – with the shot attempts and scoring chances basically a dead heat. The game was won in the small moments. It was won thanks to a strong performance from the Golden Knights’ fourth line and a timely goal from Reaves after Fleury accidentally knocked the puck into his own goal to give Washington a third-period lead.
Despite that, Vegas never wavered. People have been waiting for the magic to run out on this expansion miracle all year and it hasn’t happened.
The Golden Knights are a strong-minded bunch of misfits.
"I don’t think there was like a day or a game that made us think that we were it," said Fleury, when asked we he knew this team had something special going on. "I think every round we played, everybody picked a team against us. I think we always had to believe in ourselves, be confident in ourselves, but we never looked past anybody.
"I think we always took every game of every round trying to play our best, and we’ve been good at it."
If it continues, we’ll be saying they were the best.
