Here’s how the Knights need to approach Game 5 of the best-of-seven playoff series Thursday night at the SAP Center: Play their game and let the San Jose continue to implode.
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Nothing separates playoff teams like the skill of goaltenders, and right now the Golden Knights hold a large advantage thanks to the play of Marc-Andre Fleury.
The star forward from Russia, fresh from signing a one-year, entry level contract, will be wearing a suit instead of skates Tuesday night when the Knights and Sharks meet in Game 4 of a best-of-seven playoff series at T-Mobile Arena.
Golden Knights forward Mark Stone had a hat trick Sunday and has six goals in the first three games, leading a second line that is giving the Sharks all sorts of matchup headaches.
If the idea about March Madness is to survive-and-advance, the Knights on Friday night defined playoff hockey as survive-the-lunacy, and in the process won 5-3 and climbed straight into this best-of-seven Western Conference series.
Home ice for San Jose in the first round of this best-of-seven Western Conference playoff series means for the Knights to advance they would have to win at least one game — and perhaps more — in a place the Sharks were terrific over a majority of the season.
The Golden Knights need to be a whole lot better at everything to have a chance at evening the best-of-seven series against San Jose in Game 2 on Friday, and near the top of such a list is making things far more difficult on a couple star blue liners.
San Jose has come to play in this best-of-seven Western Conference affair with the Golden Knights, and whichever team survives to advance will do so with plenty of black and blue to show for it after the Sharks’ 5-2 victory Wednesday night in Game 1.
Of the three Western Conference opponents the Golden Knights eliminated on their way to a Stanley Cup final as an expansion team last year, San Jose extended things longest in a six-game series.
Iron man Marc-Andre Fleury started 43 of the team’s first 50 games and 59 of its first 71 this season, along the way making his second straight and fourth All-Star game overall and putting the Golden Knights in position for another Stanley Cup run.