Golden Knights 4 – Stars 0 | Dallas disaster

Help yourself and heaven will help you. The Dallas Stars didn’t help themselves. You know the rest.

The Stars were expected to have fire in their eyes Tuesday night as they returned home down 2-0 in their semifinal series. Quite the opposite happened.

Taking advantage of a disastrous start to the game from the locals, the Vegas Golden Knights easily won by the score of 4-0. With the win, they moved into a comfortable 3-0 lead in their semi-final series. All this under the gaze of furious fans, who even threw their trash on the ice at the end of the second period.

To sum things up simply: it all happened in the first eight minutes of the game.

First, there was that Golden Knights goal in the second minute. A piece of play signed Jack Eichel, who nicely passed the puck to Jonathan Marchessault, well positioned in the slot.

Then, as if a 1-0 deficit wasn’t enough, Jamie Benn got his team into even more trouble. After giving a check to Mark Stone, the captain of the Stars had what is akin to a bubble in the brain: he struck a useless and brutal double check in the face of his opponent already stretched out at his feet.

We won’t pretend to be telepathic, but it’s easy enough to guess the words that crossed head coach Peter DeBoer’s mind when his fourth-leading scorer was picked up a five-minute penalty and a misconduct by part. Changing room management. Note also that Benn left the arena without meeting the media after the game, according to what journalists on site reported.

Despite an unthreatening power play, the Knights managed to widen their lead thanks to Ivan Barbashev, who accepted a fine pass from Nicolas Roy in the slot. Just over a minute later, William Carrier turned the iron on with a backhand shot over Jake Oettinger’s left shoulder. The poor goalkeeper, beaten three times on five shots, was forced to leave his place to Scott Wedgewood and went to find Benn in the locker room.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Stars lost Evgenii Dadonov to a lower-body injury in the first period. The Texas squad, led by just 10 forwards, played good hockey in the second and third periods, but it was too little, too late. The damage was done.

Opportunism

The least we can say is that the Golden Knights were opportunistic. Without achieving great things offensively, shooting just 16 times on net, they made the Stars pay for most of their mistakes.

More than half of the Nevada club’s forwards got on the scoresheet in the win. Among the lot, the three Quebecers Nicolas Roy (2 assists), Jonathan Marchessault (1 goal) and William Carrier (1 goal), who all have their role to play in the success of Bruce Cassidy’s squad.

It is also impossible to ignore Eichel’s work. As recently as two months ago, we wondered how the 26-year-old center would react to his first appearance in the playoffs. Supported by Barbashev and Marchessault on his wings, Eichel creates scoring opportunities, in addition to being responsible defensively. With his assist on Marchessault’s goal, he now has 16 points in 14 games.

And then there is Adin Hill who, without flafla, continues the good job in front of the net. Quite the opposite of his opponent, Jake Oettinger. Confident given his team’s lead, still adequately positioned, Hill calmly blocked 34 pucks and muzzled the opposing offensive guns to earn his first career shutout in the spring tournament. Thursday, he will have the opportunity to access his first Stanley Cup final.

As for the Stars, their room for maneuver is now zero. And the famous sense of urgency that everyone talks about is still waiting…

Up: Nicolas Roy

The Quebecer collected two assists and distributed five checks, he who is in all the battles at the corner of the rink.

Down: Jamie Benn

He only played 42 seconds, but his dangerous shot out of nowhere has no place. What’s more, he may have cost the series to his family.

The number of the match: 35

That’s the number of penalty minutes imposed on the Dallas Stars in the loss. Jamie Benn and Max Domi each received a 10-minute game misconduct.