Golden Knights took advantage of Hurricanes’ systems in Game 1
A late third-period goal from Tomas Hertl helped the Vegas Golden Knights win 5-4 over the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final Tuesday night.
Despite getting outshot 29-23 and allowing the Hurricanes to take a 2-0 lead halfway through the opening frame, the Golden Knights laid the body on the home team and found open space in the Carolina zone to create offense for themselves.
On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discuss the Golden Knights’ relentless offense and how they were able to generate high-danger scoring chances against the Hurricanes.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Looking at the Tomas Hertl winner, and honestly, I think this is the case for a lot of the goals in Game 1: Hertl just finds some open space after beating his man. Shayne Gostisbehere can’t get body position, then boom, he’s a step behind and it’s a Grade-A scoring chance.
We’ve done a lot of talking on this show about when Hertl is on, how that top-nine forward group for the Golden Knights is so much more dangerous and dynamic. But I want to spin this into a conversation about Carolina’s system, and what we saw — not just the Hertl goal, but how a few of Vegas’ goals were great scoring chances.
Vegas may have learned a little something in this game, where they go “hey, if we keep pressing and keep playing physical, we’re eventually going to beat our guy, and when we do, we’ll get quality looks.”
Carter Hutton: This is where you talk about the man-on-man vs. zone defense, and Hertl is a player who is perfect to play in this situation. He’s a big body who can fight you off and has all the skill in the world. He made a play earlier in the period where he delays and hits his teammate backdoor.
if you look at the Golden Knights’ third line, and if you’re saying Hertl and Mark Stone are “third liners,” that’s the type of depth they have. The fact they’re able to go out and just grind on these teams … with the way Vegas is with their size, with the way they’re built, with the way the lineup is spread out, they can just buy time and be solid defensively and get that wear-and-tear and get good looks.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…