San Jose Sharks captain Logan Couture isn’t being offered free drinks in this town any time soon. Neither will his coach Pete DeBoer, but they’re not bitter. Couture had no issues complimenting the level of skill in Las Vegas.
We’re not going to out-skill them. Their lineup compared to ours has a little bit more skill up front. -Logan Couture
After their 2-1 OT victory against the Golden Knights, Couture explained why the win felt better than most.
For sure. We only dressed eleven… then we were down to ten forwards and six d, and found a way. I thought we kind of defended, just defended the last ten minutes to try and get that to overtime. -Couture
The Sharks captain scored the OT winner, picking up their first points against Vegas this season. Couture knows the Golden Knights lineup better than most NHL players. In eleven regular season games, Couture has 8 points (4 Goals, 4 Assists) with a plus/minus of -10. Also, add in the 13 postseason games and it’s fairly obvious he’s aware of his opponent.
Anytime we play these guys it’s going to be tough. They’re a very good team. At the end of the year they’re going to be near the top of the division. -Couture
He’s on a shortlist of players Golden Knights fans like to heckle most but overall it doesn’t cloud his vision. Same goes for the Sharks coach.
Big character win for us. A lot of things stacked against us with done of the injuries in the lineup. Obviously, with what’s happened the last couple of times we’ve been here.- DeBoer
DeBoer referenced the past poor performances his team has had in Las Vegas.
There’s a lot of fire in this rivalry, but the biggest reason it’s such a great rivalry is that both teams are so good, and when they are chirping at each other, they aren’t afraid to say it.
VGK2019
Funny. We could and I think did say that about almost every team we played in Year 1. Why? Because it was true. Fast forward to year 3 and do we have more “talent” than most of the teams we play? Yeah, probably. Are we a better “team” as a result of that? Not even close. We are just a team with top 10 talent and a top 5 goalie. And do you know what that gets you in this league? The playoffs. That’s it.
Over the past 10-15 years unless you have truly elite talent (thinking Blackhawks and Pittsburgh) OR play with passion as a team (Vegas year 1, STL and even Washington the year they won it) you tend not to get far when it matters. Right now Vegas is neither of those.
Ken Boehlke
Washington didn’t have truly elite talent when they beat Vegas?
VGK2019
Maybe but it was also the same team they had for years with no luck and not even all that close most years. Most people would say the TB team they beat had more talent.