Max Pacioretty has been through it all. In 626 NHL games played, the 30-year-old veteran has seen winning streaks, losing streaks, and overall bad stretches of play. Just last season, his former team, the Montreal Canadiens, started the year losing eight of their first ten games. On top of that, the Habs had six losing streaks of four-games or more.
So a four-game home losing streak when his team is comfortably in the playoffs isn’t going to rattle a player like Pacioretty, nor should it rattle the fans.
Every great team has to face adversity at some point or another… hopefully we can build off this experience here and rally around it. Eventually we use that to our advantage. We haven’t been playing the right way, and a little bit of a wake up call needs to jump start us here. -Pacioretty
Now deep into his first campaign with the Golden Knights, Pacioretty understands and appreciates the passionate fanbase. Which is why he’s reaching out to the Vegas faithful, and telling them to take a deep breath. The players are confident that they’ll break out of this current skid, and go on to play strong hockey at home.
We have a tremendous advantage playing at home in front of our fans. We want to make sure we maintain that by playing good hockey in front of them. -Pacioretty
Cliche or not, every NHL team has its share of ups and downs over an 82 game regular schedule. Which is why the average point total for a team that wins the Presidents Trophy is 115.5 regular season points. Even the best of the best go on losing streaks.
No. There’s no panic -Pacioretty
So in a way, Pacioretty suggests most contending teams will usually go through stretches of bad hockey. A good team will break those streaks and become a better club because of it. Pacioretty assures fans that Vegas will learn from this recent roller coaster drop.
Hopefully, this can lead to something where we look back and say we didn’t have success because of this, or because of that. We’ll make sure we don’t forget about it as well. -Pacioretty
The second liner will be the first to tell you that losing four straight at home is unsettling, but he’ll also remind you Vegas has 14 home games remaining and plenty of hockey left to build confidence before the postseason.
One thing Pacioretty is not concerned with is the notion that opponents are getting pumped up playing in front of the boisterous T-Mobile Arena crowd. In fact, he was amused by the idea.
Ha. When we’re getting cheered for it pumps us up more than the other team. The atmosphere is so cool, so lively… I wouldn’t say anyone should come in here and say that it pumps them up more than us. -Pacioretty
Spoken like a true defender of the fortress.
Mike G
The difference to me is that last year it seemed like even the players bought in to the team of destiny/making history. We always found ways to win even when we had no business winning. Rather it was a crazy game saving save by Flower or a short handed between the legs goal by Karlsson. It just doesn’t feel that way to me this year. In fact it’s almkst the opposite. It seems more likely that we will give away a game that we had every opportunity to win. I’m skeptical how that is going to play out come playoff time.
Ryan Kocis
Think we should consider how profound it is for any team to make a deep playoff run in the NHL. Fleury commented that this season is more of a “normal” one unlike the nearly supernatural feat of last year, considering we were any an expansion franchise. Let’s keep going all in with our energy and support and watch them hit the playoffs with the pedigree of defending Western Conference champs.
Branden
Yes Ryan, I whole heartily agree.
Branden
Yes this stretch of games has not been pretty, but this team has shown it knows how to bounce back and do so in a big way. I am with Patches, and believe this team will figure it out and rebound. I’d say the big difference that is showing up this year compared to last year is that playing against Vegas in Vegas is no longer a novelty for most of the teams. They understand what the environment will be like, the opposing coaches have a better understanding of how to best prepare their players for it. The Knights just need to keep doing what there doing; putting shots on net, and keeping shot off of theirs. They have what the 5th most shots on goal for the season, and are 2nd in shots against. It’s very much like the start of the season, they will start to find the net and will hopefully be just in time to carry over into the Playoffs; which unless they completely fall off a cliff will make. And as everyone knows, anything can happen come playoffs.
the HOCKEY GOD
CONS
The team is mentally and physically exhausted after last year’s long run and this past long road trip back east after a week long vacation (which didn’t help matters because it did nothing for team chemistry), how so ?
-Not making quality shots on goal
– taking uncanny penalties
– not skating hard (to net, winning battles to puck) or fast (team speed is seeming a lot slower than last year
– missing a large percentage of potential, high quality scoring chances
– losing critical face offs (although in last game they did better)
– not making crisp passes in a row ( some indecision or outright terrible decisions are being made
– running into hot goalies ? I think not, see first dash item above
– not pushing after getting behind (mental aspect of game)
are all a sign of this.
This is a trend when is starts showing up in form of a slump.
Over- using the goalie in the season is coming back to bite them as “flailing” Fluery has not been at his best during the current stretch. I am surprised that the coach didn’t pull him to maybe provide a wake up call or some incentive to the team. But the wide margin in the score wasn’t bad enough to do so in these games.
PROS
Or maybe it is just the dog days of August, I mean February. The real urgency isn’t there yet ? We shall see.
Will the GM mortgage more of the team’s future by doing a block buster trade? Will they over pay for a aging veteran ?
Will they bring up Carr , Macek, and some of the youngsters in the minor leagues to give some players a rest?
The organization is marginally slim on depth.
We shall see.