As the puck is set to drop in Minnesota, the Golden Knights will look to wash the sour taste of Game 2 out of their mouths and regain control of the series. To do so, nothing will be more important than cleaning up the turnover epidemic that led to a barrage of early goals for the Wild.
As we dig deeper, though, there are three other areas where Vegas can improve to take back home ice.
Exploit Minnesota’s Conservative Neutral Zone Defense
It’s hard to pull positives out of a game in which a team falls behind by four goals in less than 24 minutes, but one place that might show up as the series goes on is how Vegas attacked the Wild the rest of the way. Minnesota is, by nature, a conservative team; they push that even further when they get a lead. After the Golden Knights went behind, they got a good look at the Wild’s compact neutral zone setup and had many reps attempting to enter the zone against it.
Minnesota uses a 1-2-2 neutral zone setup, similar to what Vegas and about 70% of the NHL use. However, with the lead, the Wild’s two defensemen are instructed to stay as close to the center of the ice as possible while still gapping up against entries. That means there’s a lot more room to the outside for controlled entries. The reason Minnesota does this is because it limits the number of rush chances they allow. They’re fine with letting their opponent enter the zone with possession if it means there’s never a player breaking in on goal up the middle.
For the last 45 minutes of Game 2, VGK went up against this style of neutral zone defense, and they started to figure it out more and more as the game went on. The best example is on the Tomas Hertl goal. Hertl has the puck in the middle of the ice and is surrounded. As the defense collapses towards the center, instead of rushing towards the blue line looking to dump the puck in, Hertl hesitates and waits for Brandon Saad to gain speed on the outside. He hits him with a pass and the Golden Knights get a speedy, controlled entry that ultimately leads to a goal.
The longer the series goes on, the more opportunities Vegas will have to read and react to Minnesota’s conservative style. Just from the beginning of the 2nd period to the end of the 3rd, VGK improved entering the zone. Imagine what it might look like two or three games from now.
