Bruce Cassidy is a truth-sayer among NHL coaches. He may be from Ottawa where Canada’s government sits but he’s no politician. Ask a question and the veteran coach of the Vegas Golden Knights gives you an answer which is neither scripted, canned or premeditated.
Cassidy summed up Game 2 of his team’s series with the Minnesota Wild with a clear and to the heart-of-the-matter response late Tuesday night.
“We didn’t take care of the puck. Typically, when things don’t go well for us, that’s where it starts. They got behind us after we didn’t take care of the puck as well, so you’re giving their best players easy offense,” said Cassidy. “During the playoffs, it’s a bad formula. You are supposed to make it hard on them and see if they’ll battle through, and we didn’t. Their top guys got some easy offense, and they finished, so, we have to correct that. We didn’t take care of the puck, so I don’t know if there’s an adjustment on that. We have to make better plays, stronger plays, safer plays.”
If there’s one thing Golden Knights fans can take solace in it’s the fact their team hasn’t played close to its best. In some ways, Vegas hasn’t hit playoff mode yet and the series is tied 1-1.
“We’ve got to play better. I believed it in the first part of Game 1 too. They’re hungrier than us or more competitive. No one cares what we did two years ago. They respect us for what we did. They don’t care now. There are 16 teams that want the trophy, and they’re hungry. Every year that starts right in the playoffs,” said Cassidy. “Some of our guys have to realize we started Sunday here, so get hungry, get competitive. Halfway through Game 2, we started to see that. So that’s your teaching moment, get hungrier and get competitive. It’s not easy this time of year, and we’ll be fine. I believe that. They were hungrier than us and more competitive than us in the first half of the game. It showed.”
On Wednesday morning, Cassidy had put Tuesday behind and was focused on Thursday’s Game 3 in Minnesota.
“Well, it’s correctable. So, as a coach, you see it right in front of you. We fix ten minutes of puck management. What did they get?,” said Cassidy. “We want to get better after every game. So, the message will be to get better. How do we get better? Okay. We’ll dive into that. We’re going to go through all the x’s and o’s. That stuff stays between us and the team, but we will address puck management quickly. Listen, guys know when they’ve made plays and when they haven’t. I also recognize it’s a game of mistakes. So, we have to take care of the puck in certain instances. That’s a given. So, we’ll move past that. Talk to players individually. What are they seeing? And, hey, less is more sometimes. Just play the game in front of you. So, there’s a little bit of that messaging and then we’ll address what we did to get back in the game.”
The money quote: “So, what we’ll do with our top guys is try to give them a pep talk. Some guys will need a hug today. They’ll get it. Tomorrow morning, we’ll get back to work and what the game plan is,” said Cassidy.
Brayden McNabb and Shea Theodore are one of the best defensive pairs in the NHL. Full stop. Did they struggle on Tuesday? Sure. But it was an anomaly.
Over the last three seasons they’ve played over 2,467 minutes together at 5v5 and are +33 as a pair allowing 1.85 goals against per 60 minutes played. That is the sixth best mark out of 53 pairs that have played 1000+ mins together over that time second best among the 25 pairs that have played 1500+ minutes together.
Theodore:
+41 in goals (21st/414 defensemen)
+149 in shots (48th)
+15.0 in expected goals (51st)
McNabb:
+42 in goals (19th/414 defensemen)
+146 in shots (49th)
+24.8 in expected goals (23rd)
Playoffs since 2017-18 (VGK) at 5v5:
Theodore:
+33 in goals (1st/321 defensemen)
+199 in shots (2nd)
+15.7 in expected goals (2nd)
McNabb:
+7 in goals (36th/321 defensemen)
+80 in shots (11th)
+5.9 in expected goals (19th)
