Desert glitz meets prairie blitz: Winnipeg tops Vegas in first clash between unfamiliar foes
Bartley Kives | CBC News | Posted: May 13, 2018 2:05 AM | Last Updated: May 13, 2018
Jets top Golden Knights 4-2 in Game One of third-round series
In their first-round NHL playoff series against the Minnesota Wild, the Winnipeg Jets faced a familiar Central Division foe based in St. Paul, a city with cultural and geographic ties to Manitoba.
In the second round, the Jets knocked off a tougher, faster, but also familiar Nashville Predators club based in a smallish metropolitan area on the edge of the U.S. South.
But in this Western Conference series against the Vegas Golden Knights, there is nothing familiar at all, even after Winnipeg defeated Vegas 4-2 in Game One.
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For starters, no NHL team called the Winnipeg Jets has ever made it to the third round of the playoffs before. No NHL team based in Winnipeg has ever been a favourite to win the Stanley Cup, either statistically or qualitatively.
And no version of the Winnipeg Jets has ever become the sole focus of Canadian hockey fans who live west of Regina or east of Atikokan, whether or not you buy into the idea the entire nation is hoping to see Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck drive slowly down Portage Avenue in June on a repurposed Santa Claus parade float.
All of this is sufficiently strange. But there's something especially alien about playing hockey against Vegas, a team that didn't quite exist a year ago, based in a city better known for debauchery than athletics of a non-illicit variety, surrounded by the dust and blowing detritus of the Mojave Desert.
The Jets and Golden Knights played each other three times during the regular season and gave each other fits. But there is no real familiarity between these teams.
"I always think it's a disadvantage when you haven't played the [other] team a lot but, we're very well coached," Jets fan Saul Simmonds — yes, the criminal defence lawyer — said in the concourse at Bell MTS Place.
"I have no doubt they're going to understand how this game works."
Any doubts about the Jets' level of preparation for Vegas were dismissed about 65 seconds into the first period, when defenceman Dustin Byfuglien picked up a Mark Scheifele drop pass and hammered the puck behind Marc-Andre Fleury.
The Jets made it 2-0 on the power play by executing a play every hockey fan from Vladivostok to Las Vegas knows is coming but no penalty-kill unit can seem to stop: a cross-ice feed to winger Patrik Laine, followed by a laser to the short side.
Winnipeg's lead grew to 3-0 after defenceman Ben Chiarot found himself on the forecheck behind Fleury's net, dug out the puck and sent it to the crease, where it bounced off forward Joel Armia's skate and in. This stroke of luck was initially waved off due to goalie interference but then declared a good goal.
Fleury, who was a brick wall against the L.A. Kings and San Joe Sharks earlier in the playoffs, let in three goals on eight Winnipeg shots at this point of the first period. But Vegas defenceman Brayden McNabb stopped the bleeding with a shot that skirted the edge of Connor Hellebuyck's glove on its way in.
The wide-open action continued in the second period, albeit with fewer spins of the red light.
Scheifele scored his league-leading 12th playoff goal with a power-play deflection near the midpoint of the game.
William Karlsson of Vegas returned the favour with a power-play deflection of his own.
Vegas pressed in the third, but couldn't slip any pucks pass sprawling Jets shot-blockers, let alone Hellebuyck.
After 60 minutes of very wide-open play, the the Jets and Golden Knights got to know each other a little. The same may not be said for the cities of Winnipeg and Las Vegas.
Golden Knights employee Haley Craven, who got a chance to watch the game at Bell MTS Place, only needed one word to divulge everything she knew about the Manitoba capital before she got on a flight to Richardson International.
"Nothing," said Craven, who then revealed she is very aware of Winnipeg's fans.
"There's a lot of white, everywhere, and there's fans, everywhere, even outside the arena," she said. "We don't see much of inside the arena on TV but oh my gosh, outside is what we came to see, honestly."
So there you have it: A sports-industry professional from the North American city most known for spectacle is expressing excitement about people watching in downtown Winnipeg.
This spring is unfamiliar, indeed.