Golden Knights’ Swagger Returns for Sunday Matinee, VGK Wipes Out Vancouver

By ALAN SNEL

LVSportsBiz.com

 

Yes, Golden Knights fans at the arena will get their free dozen donuts because of the VGK shutout win Sunday. And the mood inside T-Mobile Arena was so giddy that they played the YMCA song with only four minutes left in the Knights’ victory over a mediocre Vancouver Canucks club.

 

But more important that sugar rushes and crowd dance moves was the fact that the Golden Knights’ swagger and edge were back on full display during a Sunday 1 p.m. matinee and there’s no getting over the fact that new Knight Mark Stone has added a jolt to a team that was struggling and losing its way.

 

VGK coach Gerard Gallant was all smiles with reporters after the Golden Knights dominated the Canucks, 3-0, and moved to 36-26-5, good for 77 points. The team is 4-0 since General Manager George McPhee made a blockbuster trade to acquire the talented forward Stone from the Ottawa Senators.

 

Here’s defenseman Nate Schmidt telling LVSportsBiz.com what Stone has meant to the Golden Knights.

 

Here’s Schmidt talking about the team’s persistence.

 

The Knights drew a solid crowd of 18,303. And now after 33 home dates, the VGK are averaging 18,297 fans a game, filling the Big Ice House on the Strip to 105.4 percent of capacity. That capacity percentage is tied with Minnesota’s for second in the National Hockey League, trailing only Chicago with 106.8 percent of capacity.

 

LVSportsBiz.com also caught up with Knights’ forward Max Pacioretty, who scored his 21st goal of the season in the second period. Ryan Carpenter (his fifth) and Reilly Smith (goal 13) also scored for the Knights.

 

Pacioretty said the trade for Stone was, what he called, “a wakeup call” and that it is working out to be “great team chemistry.”

 

Gallant can get rather snippy and terse after losses when he feels the Knights played without the proper level of effort and intensity. But after Sunday’s game, he wants the Knights to continue to the next level with the same effort against a superior and division-leading Calgary Flames team, which comes to T-Mobile Arena for a key Pacific Division matchup Wednesday.

 

LVSportsBiz.com will be there with our usual pregame show, Top of the Escalator, at 5:45 p.m. on Facebook.

 

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