[Critch]

2037/38 Playoffs Round 2 - Vegas Golden Knights
A new opponent in the playoffs. We haven't played Vegas in the playoffs yet, mainly due to them having a playoff drought for 12 seasons up til last year. The game's pre-season preview listed them as this season's favorites and, despite only getting into the playoffs as a wild card team after finishing 4th in the division, they do have a lot of very good players.

The bad news for Anchorage is they have some very good talent, defenseman Martin Hardman, Center Yaroslav Mukhachyov and RW Aleksandr Kalashnikov all in their prime and rated 5.0 current ability. More bad news is that they have a lot of depth LW An Byeong-Hun, LW Matvei Michkov, C Filip Nilsson, LD Soren Brault all rated 4.0+. The good news (for Anchorage) and maybe the reason that a team with all this talent finished 4th in the division, their goaltenders are poor. They conceded 263 goals this season, the most of any team that made the playoffs and almost 60 more than Anchorage did.

Another bit of good news (for Anchorage) is that two of their stars, Mukhachyov and Kalashnikov, are banged up and less than 100%. Mukhachyov has a sprained knee that wont fully recover til over the summer and Kalashnikov is playing with a recently dislocated finger. Kalashnikov is dissapointingly not number 47.

Game 1 - Vegas Golden Knights 2 Anchorage Huskies 5
Finishing off the last series in 5 games gave us a few extra days to get ready so Fireman and Mews are close to returning but they'll both be missing at least game one. So we'll be relying on backup Joni-Jukka Timonen against the third highest scoring team in the league. We get off to a good start, two defensemen slapshots from the blue line and it's goals for Matt Leader and Reece Gault and 2-0 after the first. The second period is quiet, other than a couple of power plays for each team, until late on when Radim Valecek pulls one back for Vegas, then Vegas get a power play almost straight away, David Prudek called for roughing. There's two goals in the power play, first Oskar Vuollet puts Anchorage 3-1 up short handed before Sam Oremba gets a power play goal for Vegas. 3-2 Anchorage going into the third. David Prudek makes it safer, 4-2 Anchorage after 16:07 and Borje Svensson adds another late on. Vegas goalie Taylor Reynard is rated 1.5 stars and it shows in this game, .857 save percentage.

Game 2 - Vegas Golden Knights 3 Anchorage Huskies 2
Still no Mews or Fireman so Joni-Jukka Timonen stays in and he puts Anchorage 1-0 up at 6:00 with another long range slap shot. Aleksandr Kalashnikov ties it up at the end of the first, his first goal of this year's playoffs. They did well getting by Vancouver with their stars crocked. At the end of the second they score twice, Filip Nilsson followed by Sam Oremba. RW Oremba seems to be the support player who has stepped up to cover their injuries. 19 goals in 79 regular season games followed by 5 in 8 in the playoffs. Jordan Gavin scores a power play goal at 9:18 of the third but Vegas hold on and the series is tied.

Game 3 - Anchorage Huskies 4 Vegas Golden Knights 3
Mews and Fireman both still out. Vegas take a 2-0 lead in the first, An Byeong-Hun (a South Korean hockey star) and Filip Nilsson. At the start of the second Jordan Gavin pulls Anchorage back into it with a goal at 0:50, we kill a power play when Timonen is called for tripping (he's really struggling despite his goal in the last game) then Matt Leader ties it up at 5:53. Shots from the blue line getting past their mediocre goalie is a theme for the series. Alexandr Kalashnikov shoots them into the lead at 19:27, so we go to the third 3-2 down. We only need 11 seconds of an early Anchorage power play and it's tied up, Jordan Gavin putting away a rebound, and at 17:47 Anchorage finally take the lead with a Peter Hrovatin goal. We're 2-1 up in the series, but the defense is crumbling, Leader is injured now too.

Game 4 - Anchorage Huskies 3 Vegas Golden Knights 2
Mews is still out and Matt Leader has joined him on the bench, a stomach muscle pull. I should probably be announcing these like real NHL injuries for realism, Upper Body Injury or Lower Body Injury and no details. John Fireman is still not 100% but we'll have to risk him as otherwise we'd have to play rookie Aaron Moody and he's rotten. More bad news, it's the beginning of May so time for the dev report and Justin Gavin shows up on it with a negative number for the first time ever. Still 5.0 rated but the rot has begun. Vegas lead after the first, Yaroslav Mukhachyov with his second goal of the playoffs. Mukhachyov is still injured and slowed, but Kalashnikov has vanished off their day-to-day list, he's fully recovered. Anchorage storm back in the second, outshoot them 17-8 and score twice. Jeff Martin at 6:26, David Prudek at 11:59. According to the shot map Prudek's goal was unassisted and right in front of the net a couple of feet out. So somebody has fumbled him the puck and gifted a goal, I'm going to believe it's their mediocre goalie. Into the third and Jonas Lambert puts Anchorage 3-1 up at 11:11. Vegas pull one back late, but we hold on and lead the series 3-1 despite the missing defensemen.

Game 5 - Vegas Golden Knights 6 Anchorage Huskies 5 overtime
Mews could play if he had to, but we're 3-1 up in the series so we'll not risk him yet. We probably should have risked him, the defense is terrible, Wall is terrible, everything is terrible. The game rates shots from 0 (it's not really a shot, more of a dump in that the keeper holds) 1 (it's a shot but the keeper should save it), 2 (a decent enough shot, but should be a save), 3 (a good chance) and 4 (like 3 but a rebound too so the keeper is out of position). Lucas Wall lets in two 1 rated shots. Their keeper lets in one too, it's like the opposite of a goalie duel. It's 1-1 after the first, Axel Sandin Pellikka with our goal. Oskar Voullet and Jonas Lambert put Anchorage 3-1 up but Vegas score 3 times in the last 4 minutes, the first of them the first of Wall's flubs, and we're 4-3 down. Anchorage bounce back in the third, Alexander Filippov at 5:55 and David Prudek at 9:17 and we're heading for the Conference final. Until 12 seconds to go, Kalashnikov scores on another poor shot that Wall messed up. It goes to OT, not for long, and we lose. Vegas back in it at 3-2 down in the series. Incidentally Lucas Wall now thinks he's worth 14mil a year for five years.

Game 6 - Anchorage Huskies 2 Vegas Golden Knights 10
Mews is back and fully fit, Matt Leader can play too, so we're as close to full strength as we can expect to be. WTF happened here? Lucas Wall stunk again, 5 goals on 17 shots so he was pulled and backup Neil Pintaric came in and stunk even more, 5 goals on 11 shots. We let in 10 goals on 28 shots, outshot them 40-28 and still got destroyed. 1-0 down after the first, 8-2 (!?) down after the second, 10-2 at the end. Alexander Filippov and Borje Svensson scored for Anchorage and lots of people scored for Vegas but none of them three times. I checked the box score and you couldnt blame the defensive pairings, all three of them were equal, all -2 or -3. It was the goalies. Back to Anchorage for game seven. One has to believe than morale may be low. Incidentally Lucas Wall still thinks he's worth 14mil a year for five years.

Game 7 - Vegas Golden Knights 3 Anchorage Huskies 4
I'd been nursing Matt Leader back from his injury, 3rd pairing and limited minutes, but he's back on the top pairing with Henry Mews even with the risk, we need to do something different. The required bounceback is late showing up, 8 minutes into the first period Vegas are 3-0 up, Wall let in 3 of the first 7 shots. At least this time none of them are of the "well he'll want that one back" variety. Since 12 seconds to go in Game 5 we've let in 15 goals in 70-ish minutes. There's signs of a recovery when Enzo Landrey scores at 19:53 and we're 3-1 down after the first. The second period zips past with no more scoring and we're into the third still 2 goals down. The game livens up in the third, Anchorage get a power play after 0:58, three seconds into the power play David Prudek fights a Vegas player for a pair of matching major penalties, it's their star defenseman Martin Hardman. Years ago Vasili Podkozlin started a fight in a playoff game we were losing and it sparked a comeback, the same thing happens here with Prudek dropping the gloves. We don't score on the resulting power play, but at 9:39 Jeff Martin (normally the Huskies player you'd bet on starting a fight) pulls us back within one, and then he scores again to tie the game up at 12:38. Into the last minute and heading for game seven overtime when David Prudek turns up again, this time to score the series winning goal at 19:31, assists for Henry Mews and Mark Dollack.

Well that was a strange series. We had it sewn up, and then we really didnt, and then we did for sure. I'll put Game 6 down as "just one of those games". At least Vegas's Yaroslav Mukhachyov can go home and let that gimpy knee heal up.

Onto the Western Conference Final, we'll be playing Nashville and will have home advantage. Over in the East it'll be Toronto Maple Leafs against New York Rangers, Toronto have just been brushing teams aside this year, a good bet for back-to-back championships.