Leading the Stanley Cup Final 2-1, the Vegas Golden Knights have a clear flaw: they have surrendered seven goals in the third period over the past two games. Yet coach John Tortorella and his players insist they aren’t worried.
“I’m not concerned,” Tortorella said. “It’s playoff hockey. A lot of stuff happens.”
The Knights blew a 4-0 lead in Game 3 on Saturday, allowing four unanswered goals in the third period before winning 5-4 in double overtime on a shot from defenseman Shea Theodore. In Game 2, they gave up three third-period goals and lost 4-3 in overtime.
“A win is a win,” captain Mark Stone said. “Would we have liked to have closed that game out a lot earlier? Of course. But they’re a good team. They’re just not going to sit down and roll over.”
During the regular season, Vegas led the NHL with 108 third-period goals and also tops the playoffs with 28. But in the last two games, goaltender Carter Hart has seen his shutouts vanish. Hart has carried a shutout into the third period seven times this postseason but never finished with a zero.
“You’re always going to check things, what you did good and what you did bad, what you can improve on,” Stone said. “There’s a lot of good things. We just want to keep getting our game going in the right direction, which is getting better each and every game of this series.”
Despite the late-game collapses, Tortorella liked how his team responded in Game 3. “I haven’t been involved in a game, especially in a playoff game, where a team scores three goals within 40 seconds, and in the finals. That can set you back a little bit,” he said. “It didn’t affect us. There was no panic. I actually thought we were playing really well up to that point, and I thought we played really well after that point.”
Every game in the series has been decided by one goal, and all three have featured multi-goal comebacks — a first in NHL history. The Knights can take a commanding 3-1 lead with a win Tuesday at T-Mobile Arena.
“They get it. They’ve been there,” Tortorella said. “A lot of this team has won and gone through the process of going through playoffs and they rely on that. I think they challenge themselves. It isn’t a physical skill. It’s a mental skill. We have that. I don’t know if we win the series, but I know we have that in this organization.”
Up next
Who: Hurricanes at Golden Knights
What: Stanley Cup Final, Game 4 (Knights lead 2-1)
When: 5 p.m. Tuesday
Where: T-Mobile Arena
TV: ABC
Radio: KFLG 94.7 FM/KKGK 1340 AM
Line: Knights -115; total 6
