Vegas confidently won against Florida and the second match of the final series of the Stanley Cup

The Vegas Golden Knights seem to be the clear favorite for the Stanley Cup Finals. Not only did he win his second consecutive home game at the start of the Finals against the Florida Panthers, but he won it very convincingly. The score 7:2 more or less accurately reflects the essence of what was happening on the ice. A notable contribution to this Vegas victory was made by Russian forward Ivan Barbashev, who scored an assist and a power reception that disabled defender Radko Gudas.

The outcome of this match, of course, looked quite unexpected. In the sense that it did not at all correspond to the idea of ​​​​the final as a confrontation between two approximately equal teams that are doomed to a hard fight in each of its rounds. Well, about the same struggle as it was in the meeting, which opened the series. It has Vegas too. took over formally with a big score – 5:2. But he didn’t really talk too accurately about what happened on the ice. The game was hard-fought, and everything in it was decided more by nuances and flashes than by any stable trends.

The new story was from a completely different opera. In the Stanley Cup Finals, you rarely see one team so superior to the other.

Exceeds literally in every significant aspect and in every shift. Actually, it was classic Vegas hockey, when the danger comes from all the links without exception and the opponent cannot relax even for a minute.

This time, even Sergey Bobrovsky was unable to keep Florida afloat. Coach Paul Maurice seated the Russian goalkeeper on the bench, releasing understudy Alex Lyon instead, in the middle of the second period, after Florida’s fourth missed puck. Not to say that there was a huge share of Bobrovsky’s fault in these goals, but nevertheless, it seems that the general bad state of the team was transmitted to him, which could not figure out what to do with such a “Vegas” – fast, purposeful, dense, and somehow hopelessly rolled into the abyss.

“Florida” tried to ignite its leader Matthew Tkachuk. In the second period, he caught Vegas’ leading center forward Jack Eichel near the center of the site, meeting him with his shoulder so hard that he, barely recovering from the knockdown, went not to the bench, but immediately to the locker room, but later returned to the squad. After that, Tkachuk twice entered into brawls with Vegas hockey players, earning ten-minute removals. But everything was useless. More or less successful for “Florida” was only the final period, in which she answered the three goals of “Vegas” with two of her own, including Tkachuk’s goal, thus avoiding a completely humiliating loss. But from the feeling that Vegas, which created a giant margin of safety, is no longer spending this period in the same mode in which it spent the first two, but slightly saving energy for the next battles, since victory was secured, there was nowhere to go.

The success of Vegas, as usual, was the result of more collective than individual efforts. But still, he had his main characters.

The most important, of course, is Jonathan Marchesseau, who scored three points and scored two goals, including the all-important first. And the second star of the match, NHL experts unanimously recognized his partner in the Vegas striker Ivan Barbashev.

Barbashev scored an assist to Alec Martinez, who scored the second goal against Florida, and thanks to her he already got the 17th point in the current play-off, gaining a foothold in the top ten scorers. However, she is only a small part of the Russian’s contribution to the victory of his team. He distinguished himself in other ways as well, demonstrating in full measure his famous universalism, his versatility. Barbashev worked out in defense, coped well with throw-ins, and also acted extremely tough, without crossing the line of what was permitted.

Matthew Tkachuk, of course, put Jack Eichel on the ice beautifully. But in general, the power reception performed by Barbashev in the first period was even more effective. With them, the Russian not only shocked Radko Gudas, but put him out of action until the end of the match. At least until the end of the match, because there are doubts that Gudas will be able to recover quickly. And the Czech is, by the way, a reliable defender, and his absence is an undoubted loss for Florida, which has now become an outsider in the final series.

She has to correct the situation at home. In the next two meetings, Florida will host Vegas at home. And her coach, Paul Maurice, after the Nevada defeat, tried to convince her that he knew how to avoid disaster, he knew what could be improved. First of all, according to him, it is about how to productively disrupt the frisky and clear transitions from defense to attack performed by Vegas, which indeed sometimes looked like the scourge of Florida in both games played. She did not have time to rebuild after the losses. But this is exactly the case when it is easier said than done, given the chic tone of Vegas.

Alexey Dospekhov