Vancouver’s Demko Blanks Golden Knights, 4-0, Thursday As VGK Is One Game From Blowing 3-1 Series Lead For Second Straight Year In Playoffs
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Vancouver Canucks goalie Thatcher “Backs against the wall” “Take one game at a time” Demko was spitting out as many cliches in his postgame interview as he made big saves against Vegas Golden Knights.
In other words, a whole lot.
The Canucks won their second straight game behind the off-the-bench Demko, who has stopped 90 out of 91 VGK shots in Games 5 and 6, including a 48-save masterpiece Thursday evening at the NHL Bubble in Edmonton in a Canucks’ 4-0 win over the number-one seeded Golden Knights.
The Knights had their scoring chances. But they couldn’t slip the puck by Demko, the San Diego product who played with VGK forward Alex Tuch at Boston College and is filling in for starter Jacob Markstrom.
Asked what the Knights have to do differently in Game 7 after the loss, VGK forward said simply, “We go to score some goals.”
Vancouver scored early in the game to assume a 1-0 lead in the first period and took that slim one-goal edge into period three.
Two more Canucks goals plus a Bo Horvat empty-netter in period three sealed the win and forced Game 7 at Roger Place arena Friday after the Dallas-Colorado Game 7 tomorrow.
It also created another day’s worth of debate among VGK fans about who should start in goal for the Knights — fan favorite/face-of-the-franchise Marc-Andre Fleury or Robin Lehner, installed by VGK coach Pete DeBoer as the team’s starting goalie. There is no 1 and 1 A here. The roles are clear as set by DeBoer — Lehner is the clear starter and Fleury is the back-up.
But the real question is — what is Fleury’s agent, Allan Walsh, plotting as way of a picture for tomorrow’s Twitter?
See you before the game on the LVSportsBiz.com Facebook page Friday for a pre-game live stream with Las Vegas radio man Frank Harnish.
Game 7 is 6 PM Vegas time.
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