Graney: Original Misfit might have just saved Knights’ season

EDMONTON, Alberta

It’s the reason they acquired him around the trade deadline, the idea that a veteran scoring winger might just come up with some key goals when it mattered most.

And look what Reilly Smith just did.

You can exhale now. Yeah. That really happened.

The Golden Knights are very much in this second-round playoff series thanks to one of the more incredible finishes you will find in any sport. A game destined for overtime never got there.

Smith scored with 0.4 seconds remaining in the third period to give the Knights a 4-3 win against Edmonton on Saturday at Rogers Place.

It means the Oilers now lead the best-of-seven series 2-1 with Game 4 scheduled for Monday night.

It means this thing is for real now.

Karlsson and Smith

You can’t overstate the patience Smith showed in that final frantic play, waiting and waiting and waiting before tossing the puck at the net. He waited for bodies to clear before taking a shot that deflected off Edmonton star Leon Draisaitl’s stick.

“I’m just trying to keep it out of the net obviously,” Draisaitl said. “And it’s just a bad bounce.”

And a glorious one for the Knights.

Nobody really knew at first if it had crossed in time. But then the Knights’ bench went crazy, signifying the goal indeed counted.

Smith scored twice on the night, coming to life in what has been a quiet postseason for him. The Original Misfit couldn’t have picked a better time to shine.

And isn’t it appropriate that the one making the play before the play was his longtime linemate and close friend William Karlsson, who once again Saturday showed what a terrific player he is at both ends. So responsible. So important.

It was Karlsson who on the forecheck beat three Oilers to the puck behind the Edmonton net before spinning it out front for Smith. It was beyond an impressive move, one Karlsson has made several times in the past.

It just doesn’t always end up with such a dramatic finish.

“I just tried to get there as fast as possible,” Smith said. “I thought there was a chance. Just pump-faked and it worked out. I was just hoping, really. If I try to shoot that (right away), it gets stopped by the first guy or second guy or the goalie.

“Sometimes, you just hope for the best.”

It’s not the first time in these playoffs the Knights’ resilience has shown through, that such a veteran group answers adversity with the right play when needed most.

Brayden McNabb played despite not being 100 percent after the defenseman was tripped into the boards in an overtime loss Thursday. He even had the secondary assist on Smith’s game-winning goal.

Mark Stone, the team’s captain, left the game in the first period with an upper-body injury and didn’t return.

That, and the Oilers tied things at 3-3 with just 3:02 remaining.

And yet the Knights forged ahead. Never blinked. Knew that going down 3-0 in the series would almost assuredly be too large a mountain from which to scale all the way back.

A memorable finish

“You can’t get too upset, too high or too low,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “This is usually how the playoffs work. Just the makeup of our group. They’ve won, they’ve lost. They’ve been on both sides of it. You just have to play for the next one.”

They did so Saturday, and it worked out in a manner no one could have predicted. I’m not even sure you can draw these sorts of things up.

That’s how memorable the finish was. That’s how great a play it was from Karlsson to Smith to having such amazing patience while knowing the clock was running down.

Zero-point-four seconds.

“That was one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in a hockey game,” defenseman Nic Hague said. “Thank God it was good. They were selling out to block it, like I would be, and for (Smith) to keep pushing it around them and (waiting) as he did … that was special. That was fun.”

You can exhale now.

Yeah. That really happened.

Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.