Vegas Golden Knights Seeking To Finish Off Sharks

The Vegas Golden Knights deserve a lot of credit. Sure, they were the darlings of the sports media world last season as they obliterated every record for success by an expansion team en route to the Stanley Cup Finals. That was a great run but in some ways their sophomore season has been even more impressive. The team had every opportunity to regress this season following last year’s unprecedented effort. Vegas didn’t get off to a great start this season. On November 15, they were 8-10-1 and #13 in the Western Conference. The team continued to work and one month later they were 18-14-2 and had moved into 8th place.

Unlike last season when everything seemed to come almost too easily for Vegas, this year was full of ups and downs, ebbs and flows. In late December/early January they won 7 straight and 8 of 10 immediately after which they lost 4 straight and 10 of 13. They bounced back from that, however, and even though they finished with 19 fewer points than their debut season and well off the pace in the Pacific Division they were back in the playoffs. There were plenty of NHL media and fans looking to dismiss the Knights’ mind boggling performance last season as a fluke–a function of a more favorable expansion draft format and a down year for the rest of the Pacific Division. That’s no longer possible. The Golden Knights have built a credible NHL hockey franchise in the desert.

Game 5 will be back at the SAP Center in San Jose aka the ‘Shark Tank’. One thing is certain–the Sharks couldn’t get out of Las Vegas fast enough. They have been completely dominated in 9 lifetime games against the Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena. Vegas is 7-2-0 in those games and the Knights have outscored San Jose by a combined 27 goals. Overall, Vegas holds a 12-6-0 all time record against San Jose and while things have been much more evenly matched on the Sharks’ home ice the Knights have won 5 of the 9 all time meetings there. The Knights appeared to be in horrible form as the regular season ended losing 7 of their final 8. The playoffs, however, are a completely different world from the regular season (ask the Tampa Bay Lightning how that works) and Vegas is playing well and showing a lot of confidence.

Every coach and player and every sport quickly memorizes the cliche that ‘you’ve got to play ’em one game at a time’. Whether or not they’ll admit it, San Jose is obviously well aware that should they extend the series all they’ll get is a return date to their personal chamber of horrors aka the T-Mobile Arena. Martin Jones has been in poor form during the playoffs with a 5.33 goals against average and a .838 save percentage. He’s been yanked twice in this series and in 6 of his 16 career starts against the Golden Knights. Aaron Dell has only been marginally better in relief with a 3.35 GAA and a .861 save percentage. San Jose finished #21 in scoring defense this season allowing 3.15 goals per game and their .889 team save percentage was the worst in the NHL. Meanwhile, Marc-Andre Fleury is rounding into form and coming off his 15th career playoff shutout.

Historical precedent favors San Jose here. Teams down 3-1 playing Game 5 at home win 57.4% in all NHL series (62-46 all time) and 67.5% of the time in the first round (15-9 all time). Even so, the team leading 3-1 going into Game 5 on the road is 67-8 all time in NHL 7 game series for 89.3%. Now the bad news for San Jose–the Sharks have never come back from a 3-1 series deficit. Vegas takes Game 5 to advance and with NHL hockey odds having them installed as a +108 underdog they’re all the more attractive. Prior to Game 4, head to head matchups had gone Over in 5 straight, 6 of 7 and 7 of 9. 12 of the 18 all time meetings between the teams have gone Over as have 6 of 9 in San Jose. Given the way the Knights are scoring goals and Martin Jones’ poor form (assuming he lasts more than a period) this looks like another Over result.

BET VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS +108 OVER SAN JOSE SHARKS
BET VEGAS/SAN JOSE OVER 6 -121