VGK wraps up the division, will face Mammoth in the opening round

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The Golden Knights locked up the Pacific title by finishing the season on a blistering

701 run, a search that capped off one of the tightest division races of the year and validated

the late season turnaround under John Tortarella.

You're Lockdown Golden Knights, your daily podcast on the Vegas Golden Knights.

Part of the Lockdown podcast network, your team every day.

Hi again from Las Vegas, Tony Kerdasco and Chris Golic reporting ahead a recap of last

night's clinching win against the Kraken.

The emergence of one Riley Smith when VGK needed him down the stretch and a glance, our

first initial glance at the Utah mammoth in the matchup against VGK in the opening round

of the playoffs.

Make sure to tune in daily on that Monday through Friday, one o'clock in the afternoon.

You can catch our show and the Silver State Sports and Entertainment Network SSSEN can

be found on Cox Cable Channel 77 and also on YouTube TV.

So VGK handled business the last night, the VGK needed just one point at home for home

ice advantage in the first two playoff series and they got they doubled down.

They got two points in the four to one victory over the Kraken.

So now the opening round of the playoffs will be against the Utah mammoth.

It'll probably start on Sunday.

The Golden Knights went through a tumultuous run to get here.

The coaching change definitely worked.

Ron Tortorella's arrival sparked immediate structure and urgency, turning a divided

locker room and a slumping team into division champions.

Yeah, I mean, we talked about it on yesterday's show.

I think they were going to find a path to the playoffs regardless, but I think Tortorella

can be credited with whatever the difference is from first to second place in the Pacific

division.

I think he has had that positive of an influence on the Golden Knights and you heard it in the

end game interview, right?

Just stick with it, stay calm, everything is going to kind of work out, you know, and

then the Golden Knights rattle off nine high dangers in the third period and don't allow

a single high danger from the Seattle Kraken and in a very important moments.

I mean, sure, you can argue about first round opponents and all that and we'll touch

on the mammoth later on, but at the end of the day, when the division figured out and

a big game for the Golden Knights, it was not a perfect game by any means.

They looked a little bit bored, even for a while.

They gave a, you know, that second period goal, like it was a nothing goal, whatever.

And they did, they stuck with it.

They got better as the game progressed and a little explosion in the third period.

BGK overcame a slow start.

As you mentioned, the Golden Knights missed 10 shots in the first period.

This was a shades of what we were seeing under Bruce Cassidy.

And Cassidy would have said that this team was being too cute.

Like what, three or four behind the back passes in the first period alone, too much passing

VGK trailed in the second period, one nothing on that Shane right goal, but that was it for

the mammoth.

In the second, Tommy Hurdle had a shot off the post had one off the post in Denver.

He's struggling 19 games now.

There are 20 games without a goal.

Late in the first, Nick Dowd won a face off, shaped theodore with a shot through traffic.

It gets through and scores.

The Rister makes it one one in the third.

That's one VGK erupts, Mitch Marner, the tip in.

And now up to 80 points, congrats to him off the Brady McNabb shot.

And the play before that, Nikke Koko with the turnover behind the net.

And the backhander by Marner wasn't strong enough to get there as we saw Koko recover.

And that again set up the play in which Marner scored.

I think he was kind of upset with himself shooting at an empty nap, but didn't get enough

mustard on it.

And then Riley Smith, goals number 15 and 16 will talk more about him.

The delayed penalty, Riley Smith, the second goal of the night.

They took Carter heart out of net so they had the man advantage.

And I really felt that they were going to try to set up Tommy Hurdle to get him out of

the funk on that one.

And now the Golden Knights, the Pacific Division pillow fighting champions of the world.

Now they get some time to rest before the playoffs begin in four days.

In four, I can't.

And he really feel about the playoffs beginning in four days.

Yeah, I mean, Hurdle pulling up his game log, March the fourth since his last goal.

Since March the fourth in the games after that in Tony decided to leave.

He's done Tony's like, am I going to screw this?

I was his camera again.

Since that game March fourth, where Hurdle had a goal and assists, he has one, two, three, four.

He has just five assists in that time frame.

So we'll dive a little deeper into Tomas Hurtle and his lack of impact as of late,

but he's someone the Golden Knights taught Thomas Hurdle.

He is someone that the Golden Knights are going to need dearly to sort things out.

More than simply power play contributions.

Third line, that's going to be a big matchup.

We'll hit Mammoth a little bit later on again, but the third line battle,

that's where a lot of playoff series are won and lost.

And on paper, Tomas Hurtle is the right person to have in that spot.

So we'll see if we'll see if Tommy Boy can get that figured out, Tony.

Tony Boy.

What's that?

See if Tommy Boy can get that figure.

You call me Tony Boy.

Carter Hart has won seven straight games in net.

And that's been part of this turnaround for the Golden Knights.

He's definitely been a key for VGK.

And as we mentioned, the second, I mentioned that Torts was named the head coach.

We knew what was going to happen.

Hart was going to come back.

He was going to be healthy and then either way.

I don't know what that is.

I think Hart had the net company either way, Tony.

It just seems like that was smart enough from the moment he was brought into Vegas

and whether the plan was to do something with Aiden Hill after that happened.

Unfortunately, Carter Hart got hurt.

We'll never know.

But there was a lot of conversations about Aiden Hill getting traded right up at the trade

deadline.

The Golden Knights were shopping him, but that would have been for another high priced

goalie.

You know, Jordan Bennington or something like that.

Taken back now.

What a mistake that would have been.

Holy cow.

Well, yeah.

Looking at Carter Hart.

So his first game back against the flames 864% first game back goals he gave up weren't

that bad.

I don't I remember, but starting with this game against Edmonton, here's all of his

save percentages, 969909, oh, my goodness, 90s terrible 938 913 957.

So Golden Knights got that net figured out right now.

I mean, these are all of a sudden we're talking Vesna numbers here from Carter Hart down

the stretch.

It's a.

It's insane.

It's a pinch me type of moment, five Pacific division titles been in the cup final twice.

One Stanley Cup win and for a team that didn't exist just, you know, 10 years ago, didn't

you have a name 10 years ago to this day.

So you look at all of that in the fact that John Torrella comes in cold off the bench,

Bruce Cass, these Stanley Cup coach fired in Carter Hart's leading this team to the playoffs

right now.

It's it's never dull in the in Southern Nevada when it comes to hockey.

That's for sure.

No, it is never dull and we've noticed again, what Torrella does when he talks about

Aiden Hill.

Oh, he's been great.

He's been spectacular.

He's been awesome.

He's been this and that they need to bolster regardless of what's going on behind the

scenes.

They need to bolster the confidence of Aiden Hill.

At some point, look, they might need him in the playoffs.

They might need him in the playoffs in Vegas.

You need six goalies in the playoffs, I mean, that's the reality.

And listen, I know Hill's been an afterthought.

We've had our things to say about him, but the reality is with what's been happening in

Vegas and Carter Hart, he's, you know, still who knows how his body is going to respond

now.

I mean, he's been playing a lot of games.

And now it's every other day, basically, plus a travel day every now and then.

But being that the goal that you're playing Utah is probably not going to be a travel

day is built into that schedule.

So when it's Carter Hart's nets, unless something happens, and you know what, house surprise,

maybe this is a little stretch, but house surprise, if the goalmates did make a run, if Aiden

Hill was the last goalie standing, whether it's conference final, Stanley Cup final second

round, I mean, it wouldn't be a shock.

That's the crazier thing.

It would be wild, yes, but not shocking to say the very least.

Riley Smith, he came on late in the season, despite platooning with Brandon Saad, the

Sotter, Smith should get the start in the opening game of the playoffs.

He should get the most time.

We'll talk about his contributions next right here on Lockdown Golden Knights.

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Welcome back on this edition of Lockdown Golden Knights, Tony Crudasco, Chris Golic

from Las Vegas.

Just a reminder tomorrow night, I will be at the beer park.

Right there on the Las Vegas strip, WrestleMania is in town.

Beer park school.

I'm doing the Q&A session with Maven Huffman and Devon Dudley.

Between them, I think they have over they have to have over a million subscribers on YouTube.

Almost as many as us, so that's more.

I just want to shout out on there for locked on five to eight p.m. tomorrow.

If you're in the vicinity, come on by, did this last year and it is an absolute blast

because these guys are, they're going to be unfiltered and ready to go again tomorrow.

Five to eight beer park, it's a Q&A session with Maven Huffman and Devon Dudley.

I'll tell you what, Maven's YouTube is something that even the non-wrestling fan can enjoy.

It's really good.

He'll just address everything going on behind the scenes.

I'm sure the WWE does not like some of his topics, just like when I say, man, the playoffs, they're coming.

And why is VGK starting on Sunday rigged?

Riley Smith, two goals last night, his second goal, second two goal game, I should say, of the season.

He was out of the lineup for three games, scratched for Brandon Saad, but Smith,

it's going to make it really difficult to keep him out of the lineup in the playoffs.

Riley Smith with goals and back-to-back games, simply put, Riley Smith finds the back of the net,

and Saad doesn't.

VGK needs the scoring and John Torturella was just talking about these two players.

It's going to be a difficult decision on who to, no, no, not at all.

It's got to be Riley Smith, who's got to be the guy he's a gamer.

He knows Las Vegas, he knows VGK, he knows the fans, he knows what it means, and he's done it before.

Yeah, I mean, it's, listen, I understand giving Saad a chance.

I understand seeing what you can get out of him, but Saad's been a disappointment of 49 games,

three goals, six assists, and just largely a ghost in everything happening right now.

So the thing, the difference was, Riley Smith was your defensive specialist.

He was your, you know, your third line, maybe even fourth line, just do his best to play defensive.

He gets a few goals every now and then, okay, great.

Well, Smith is 16 goals this year.

I was looking that up this morning with 16 goals.

Wow, okay.

So for $2 million, you take 16, you take 16 goals all day long here and just looking at Brandon Saad's game log.

I mean, what's he bringing to this team?

He's got, he scores last goal and coming out of the Olympic break of all things of February 25 against the Kings,

had an assist against Mancouver on April the seventh.

I mean, in this calendar year, he has one, two, three, four.

He's got five points this entire calendar year.

So it's a no brainer.

I mean, if Riley Smith, I don't think Riley Smith had any injuries throughout the season.

If Riley Smith goes all 82, we're talking to 20 goals score.

And yeah, I mean, it's going to come down to the battle of the third lines with Vegas and Utah.

And Riley Smith is an advantage over many third line left wingers in this league.

Yeah, and Smith is always in the right position, the right time.

He likes that right side of the goal.

He picks up the loose change a lot of times, like we saw last night.

And again, much better than we even envisioned.

A lot better this season than we even thought.

I didn't know what we would get out of Riley Smith.

Saad, just the one last game that he played, what four games ago now,

or five games ago, like he skated fast up and down the ice.

He looked better, the eye test, he looked better.

He did look a lot better.

I will give him that, you know, and he was he was doing what torts wanted,

but he wasn't producing any results.

No, Saad, unless there's an injury, which they're very well could be,

but Saad is going to be the type of player.

Okay, your team is down three to one in the series.

Maybe you get a spark and you throw him into the lineup.

So with all due respect to Saad, we hope we don't see him on the ice for that reason.

And if we're simply talking nothing else besides Riley Smith versus Brandon Saad,

who you rather see, the pole would be 98.7% for Brandon for a for Riley Smith,

besides Brandon Saad's family, who might load the votes on the other side.

So, but to be fair, Saad is a good player to have in your back pocket.

Should you need an injury replacement?

Should there be some type of matchup that, you know, he has history against this goal

here, something like there are some strange scenarios where Saad certainly can draw in,

but I don't think it's at the expense of a Riley Smith.

A money player, for sure, definitely.

I was thinking about the chemistry of this team and a couple of things really struck me of late.

Number one, Mitch Marner, Mitch, he said he was going to do a lot of nights at his house with the team.

A lot of inviting them over for barbecues, et cetera, would have you.

Have you heard anything about this?

This is the stuff you're not going to hear about.

And that's, that's just fine.

Well, I would think we would hear about it.

I would think that we would hear that they had a good night, played cards at his house.

I'm willing to wager.

It's been I have no knowledge on where they are, but I'd be willing to wager that he's made good on that.

Whether it's a big team, Kumbaya, or hanging out with, you know, a few players every now and then.

I'll bet Marner has done his part in making, in making the, the locker room, the community of this team stronger.

And then something else on a state run radio, the only place where you could find Kelly McCrimman,

because of the softball questions.

He was just talking, oh, it was a great road trip for the Golden Knights, because they had a chance to get to know each other.

Like they had this chance to, to bond and get to know each other.

Shouldn't they have known each other before torts came along?

They had a five game road trip coming up.

Right. Well, four game.

If you with that weird LA and then they go, went across to Washington, but so this team knows each other.

I'm not sure where McCrimman's going with that one.

Okay. But there was division.

There was relayed with Tortorrala somehow.

There was division. You have to admit there was division with this team.

There's no doubt.

Of course there was.

If I had locker room, they stopped playing.

I mean, Cassie lost the locker room and changed got made and here we are.

A brief look at the Utah mammoth who took two of three from VGK.

This season coming up next here on Lockdown Golden Knights.

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Welcome back on this edition of locked on goal the nights.

Tony could ask on Chris Golic reporting from Las Vegas.

We appreciate you making locked on goal the night.

Your first listen to the day.

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I just had to throw it out there.

Chris, I'm hoping maybe like I even tagged the owner of the mammoth.

We're trying to get dibs to go on that Zamboni.

I wonder if he'll ever respond.

He probably sees us as the enemy.

Well, you're the enemy.

I'm not.

I'm like Mr. Neutral.

I'm Mr. Rigged.

So maybe you'll let me go on there.

Imagine Tony with a rigged sign on the mammoth.

Where they call that thing?

Oh, where are the beanie?

What is that thing that call that?

Xamon I call the Xamonator.

Oh, whatever it is.

Okay.

So in their first season in Utah, the mammoth finished six the year ago in the

central division 89 points, but they missed the playoffs.

Now they make the playoffs in season two.

The former team Arizona, last time they made the playoffs was in 2020 and 2021.

That season, the team formerly known as the coyotes.

I wonder if we will see a more powerful central division team handle a

pillow fighting team from the Pacific.

I'm wondering if that division was, it was so much better than the Pacific

that we will see the strength of their scheduling.

Does it balance out now?

The mammoth one, two of three against VGK in a much stronger division.

And that definitely is something to be aware of.

Yeah.

I mean, listen, it's a good hockey team.

It's a younger hockey team, younger legs.

And it's going to, it's going to have the vibe of last year's series against

the Minnesota wild where bullets are going to look slow at times.

They're not going to look like they can keep up, but they're going to have to

find a way to necessarily slow down Arizona, but just

Arizona handle their pushes.

You said Arizona.

What's that?

You said Arizona.

I, of course, I say Arizona, put a dollar in the swear jar.

That's fine.

They're going to have to slow down Utah.

They're going to have to just kind of keep into the outside and not let them run

up and down center ice and very similar.

What we saw against the wild last season and could come down to coach versus

coach as the season or as the series goes on.

And you know, we'll, we'll see.

I mean, I always go back, right?

Best coach, best goalie.

That's a while taken this series.

And this is where I'm actually going to Google the Arizona, the Utah man with

coaches name right now.

Okay.

VGK has a big advantage in special teams.

We'll see that.

We'll focus more on that tomorrow.

This is a very fast team.

They've got three or four of the top skaters in the top 10.

I mean, they are really fast.

And so you talk about the goal the night's meeting their match.

You're talking about pace and tempo.

This should be up and down the ice.

And VGK is going to have to shut down a lot of stars.

How about Dylan Gunther, a 40 goal season?

You couple him with Clayton Keller with Nick Schmaltz.

Man, Keller got what 86 points?

This is a tough, tough out.

I don't care.

VGK might be trying to play Koi and scheduling WWE.

So they don't have to play on Saturday.

Yeah, this, this is going to be a difficult out for VGK.

I don't see any playoff prices yet.

Oh, it's up there.

No, no, no, no, no, go look on at Lockdown VGK.

Come on, bro, you're missing.

Um, so no, there's a lot of things to look at here.

And as I started saying earlier, let's talk coach.

Let's talk gold tender real fast, all right.

Heart versus the milk of the milk.

There's been okay against VGK for once.

So I started 62 games.

He started 62 games this season for crying out fine.

Good for him.

Three, two, six lifetime against Vegas 901,

safe percentage for milk.

It did have a shutout in March against the Vegas golden night.

So that's certainly something to keep an eye on.

We know what Carter Hart's been doing down the stretch.

So now let's kind of look coach versus coach here.

And Andre Tarrigni.

I mean, okay, let's see using the OHL finals in 2018, 2019.

I think it was in the queue.

I think it was in the queue wall.

He was in the queue before that out of the playoffs lost his finals.

But he's never coached in the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs,

whether as an assistance or as a head coach.

So that's huge advantage.

Vegas heading into the series against the era Utah man with the Utah Arizona

mammoth coyote hockey club.

Okay.

So the opening line VGK minus 188 mammoth plus 155 officially

official from our good friends at FANDULE.

This is a mammoth team.

So one of the keys for the golden nights has been its health.

And there are a variety of issues and concerns with injuries.

Barrett Hayton, Jack McBain, two key pieces could be out.

We'll talk more about them tomorrow.

And then Sean Dursy, he injured his hand in the game against Winnipeg on Tuesday.

The defenseman when he blocked a shot, we don't know if he will be back.

We'll talk more about this.

Of course, in our engine.

What's that a lot to unpack a lot to unpack.

As Colin just said, we appreciate you tuning in.

And we'll be back again tomorrow for WTF day.

What the Friday with our in depth preview, join our lockdown,

golden nights community today, lockdownpodcast.com slash every day.

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