The Golden Knights have now advanced to the second round or better in three of the last four seasons. Only four other NHL teams are in that club: the Boston Bruins, Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders.
Vegas has now won six playoff series in its four year existence. The St. Louis Blues won six in three years out of the gate but lost in the opening round of Year 4. One more series victory and Vegas will pass the Blues. Vegas moves onto the second round where they'll meet the President's Trophy winning Colorado Avalanche.
Some quick thoughts on the series that was and the series to come:
Wild center Joel Eriksson Ek is Minnesota's best player. He's greasy, smart, tough and skilled.
Wild coach Dean Evason did a great job with his team all season and the first round. He's intense and well prepared and made smart adjustments. His team ran out of gas Friday night and that's not on him. Vegas was just a little deeper.
Max Pacioretty makes a big difference when he's in the Vegas lineup. He's the club's best goal scorer and he showed that with his game winner on Friday burying his first opportunity from the slot. Pacioretty is made to score that goal. His reaction after, as he twirled his stick and then pantomimed returning his sword to its sheath, send a wave of confidence to his team. Without saying "I'm back and so is our offense," that's exactly the message he conveyed.
Pacioretty became just the fifth player to score a series-clinching goal in his first playoff game of the year, joining Doug Brown (Game 6 of 1998 CSF w/ DET), Kevin Dean (Game 5 of 1997 CQF w/ NJD), Jaroslav Pouzar (Game 4 of 1983 CF w/ EDM) and Greg Meredith (Game 4 of 1983 DSF w/ CGY). Doug Brown just happens to be the father of VGK center Patrick Brown.
Golden Knights defensemen Alec Martinez and Alex Pietrangelo each improved to 5-0 in career Game 7s while head coach Pete DeBoer improved his Game 7 record to 6-0.
The winner of the series will be the No. 1 seed when the NHL reseeds for the semifinals.
Nathan MacKinnon leads the playoffs with six goals and three of them are empty netters. In the last 102 games including playoffs, Colorado have been shut out just two times and both were by Marc-Andre Fleury.
Vegas gave up just two power play goals against in its series vs. the Wild. Colorado swept the Blues and went 6-12 for 50% on the power play with five different players accounting for the six with only MacKinnon bagging a pair. Colorado had 66 hits in its four games against the Blues. Vegas had 63 hits in Game 2 vs. Minnesota. The Avalanche averaged 16.5 hits in its series compared to the 42.1 that Vegas averaged on the Wild.
