Game thoughts:
Vegas is a team that comes out of the can confident. Carolina needs some results to get there. Last night, they got there. Lock the barn door, Katie ā¦ this series might be a wild one.
Goalies evened out last night. Freddie was fine, Hart was fine. Edge to no one. Neither of them stood on their head, so no advantage gained but Andersen did make a couple of saves late that might give him a shot of confidence heading into Game 3, while Hart wonāt be feeling great after getting beaten cleanly a couple of times.
That McNabb injury could be a big deal if heās got to miss time. Theodore is playing out of his mind, but heās got all kinds of freedom with McNabb holding down the fort while he roams all over the place. They donāt really have another guy with that capability and itās a HUGE step down to bring in either Hutton or Korczak when youāre already trying to get by with Coughlin in the mix. Also Rasmus Andersson just showed why heās always been an issue. Great tool kit, but heās always been prone to dumb decisions under pressure. That puck that Stank took off of him HAS to go to the corner.
Garrett Rank showed why he has zero business in a Cup Final game last night. How nobody in the league office can see that is an absolute mystery.
Not sure you could properly call Carolinaās first line ābackā but they were pretty good last night and Jarvis got off the schneid with the game winner. He tends to run hot when his confidence is up and heās got to be 10 feet off the ground today. I thought Aho outplayed Eichel for the majority of the night too. Svech is Svech, but he dialed it down a bit and played well I thought. If those guys can keep holding their own 5v5 and keep getting some power play production then everything should be fine.
Interesting to me that Brindy mixed up the 1st and 3rd lines and managed to get the 2nd and 4th lines cooking. Itās a weird world sometimes.
