Golden Knights Advance; Jets Didn't Put Up Much of a Fight

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The Vegas Golden Knights crushed the Winnipeg Jets in such a convincing fashion in their playoff series that Jets coach Rick Bowness said he was “disgusted” by his team’s effort.

Chandler Stephenson scored on the Golden Knights’ first shot of the game against Connor Hellebuyck and they went on to win 4-1 in Game 5 to make the Jets the first team eliminated in the NHL postseason. The Golden Knights will face either Los Angeles or Edmonton.

Bowness, 68, wasn’t done. He left retirement to take over this team and didn’t like what he saw. Older coaches have the luxury of being able to say what’s on their mind. He clearly didn’t care if he made his players mad.

Was this a coach asking for changes?

The Jets won the first game while the Golden Knights were trying to find their playoff mode. Then, the Golden Knights produced four consecutive wins, out-scoring Winnipeg 18-9.

Stephenson scored twice for Vegas, while Mark Stone added three points, in the clincher.

Vegas is now 8-5 in 13 playoff series since joining the NHL in 2017-18. Since then, only the Tampa Bay Lightning have won more playoff rounds. They have won 13.

The Golden Knights are the third franchise to win at least eight rounds within its first six NHL seasons in the NHL. The others are Edmonton Oilers (12 of 16 series from 1979-80 to 1984-85) and New York Rangers (8 of 13 series from 1926-27 to 1931-32).

⭐️ The Tampa Bay Lightning stayed alive in their playoff series by defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 in Game 5. Michael Eyssimont and Anthony Cirelli each had a goal and an assist. Goalie Andrei Vasilevsky made 28 saves to raise his record to 5-1 in elimination games since 2020. He has a 1.59 goals-against average and .944 save percentage in those contests. This was also Vasilevskiy’s 65th career postseason win, tying him with Dominik Hasek for 12th place on the NHL’s all-time list. Only two other goaltenders have as many wins as Vasilevskiy when facing elimination over that span: New York’s Igor Shesterkin (5-2) and Montreal’s Carey Price (5-2).

✌️ Akira Schmid made 23 saves for the New Jersey Devils to shut out the New York Rangers 4-0 and move one win away from advancing to the second round. The Devils lead the best-of-seven series 3-2 going into Saturday’s Game 6 at Madison Square Garden. This was Schmid’s first career postseason shutout. Schmid has beaten the Rangers three consecutive times since they beat New Jersey twice to launch the series. Dawson Mercer (21 years, 182 days) scored a shorthanded goal for New Jersey in Game 5. He’s the youngest NHL player to score a shorthanded tally since Connor McDavid (20 years, 91 days) netted a shorthanded tally in 2017.

How many times in NHL history has a team overcome a 3-1 deficit to win their playoff series?

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• ⏱️ Ondrej Palat opens the scoring not even 30 seconds into game 5 thanks to Fox deflection

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TRIVIA ANSWER

NHL teams have overcome 3-1 playoff deficits 31 times.