After a much needed All-Star break, a rested Vegas Golden Knights squad defeated the Edmonton Oilers 3-1 on Tuesday, ending the Oilers’ 16-game winning streak and stopping them from tying the 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins’s record of 17 straight wins.
Golden Knights’ forward Chandler Stephenson scored the go-ahead goal and goaltender Adin Hill stopped 30 of the 31 shots he faced. The Golden Knights, the NHL’s defending Stanley Cup champions, are now 30-15-6 with 66 points, second place in the Pacific Division, and still have key players like Jack Eichel and Shea Theodore out of the lineup.
On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk, Colby Cohen and Luke Gazdic discussed the Oilers-Golden Knights game, and debate whether this Vegas group can be the first team to win back-to-back Stanley Cup championships since the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016 and 2017.
Luke Gazdic: This is what Vegas does: they hide in the weeds, climbing in the standings and not a lot of people are talking about them. We talk a lot about Vancouver and Winnipeg and Edmonton’s streak, but Vegas sits back, they wait for you to make a mistake and feast on transition and turnovers.
Colby Cohen: I spent four years with Vegas Head Coach Bruce Cassidy in the minors, and his system and structure, the way he sets things up, he’ll let you skate around the ice then collapse the house. Yes, Hill looks like an All-Star caliber goaltender, but I feel like this system protects goaltenders. Maybe that’s an unfair statement, watching the way he plays.
Luke Gazdic: Listen, if he can continue to coach that way, the sky is the limit for the Golden Knights. I will say, it’s a tough system to play in. All five guys on the ice have to be doing their job, and if one cog isn’t in the right spot, that’s when breakdowns happen.
You can watch the rest of the segment and the rest of the episode here…
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