Arizona Coyotes : Scouting the enemy Vegas Golden Knights
By Jim Lynch
The Arizona Coyotes are facing off against the Vegas Golden Knights tomorrow night in Arizona. To begin our analysis of the team let’s look at the opponent.
The Vegas Golden Knights have a record of 2-1-0 to start the season. They beat the San Jose Sharks twice, and lost to the Boston Bruins last night. Vegas is entering a busy stretch of games now so hopefully they will come to Arizona with a lot on their minds.
Vegas lost 4-3 last night against the Boston Bruins and although they lost the game they skated with the defending Eastern Conference Champions. As the Golden Knights come to Arizona here are a few players to keep on your radar from the Knights.
Ryan Reaves is a menace in the NHL. He gets under other players skin and tries to annoy them. Reaves does his job when you stop talking about the hockey game and start talking about the fight he is getting in.
Reaves has made players like Evander Kane, and Tom Wilson stop playing their game and start playing his.
The Coyotes have a lot of talent and skill. They do not have the size and grit to compete with Reaves antics, so do not let him play his.
If Reaves plays dirty move on from it and keep trying to score goals.
Marc-Andre Fleury is one of the best goalies in the NHL. He is a champion and helped lead the team to the Stanley Cup Final just 2 years ago.
Fleury has the ability to steal a game, and has done it before. He can make a save on a breakaway, or even a one timer.
If the Coyotes want to score their second goal of the season they are going to need to get traffic in front of Fleury. There is no way to score on him otherwise, he is just too skilled.
Mark Stone leads the Vegas Golden Knights in points so far this season. In just 3 games he has registered 2 goals and 4 assists thus far. If the Coyotes want to win their game tomorrow they will need to limit the chances of the Knights.
The Knights have 4 of the best lines in hockey, with players like Paul Stastny, Reilly Smith, and William Karlsson leading the charge for Vegas. Moving into the game Arizona will need to show up defensively if they want to have any chance to win.
Conclusion
Obviously Arizona needs to find a way to play against a very skilled Vegas team. Vegas plays a very high-speed, high physicality style of play. Going up against a big team Arizona will want to try to out play them.
Don’t focus on the hits and the dirty style, if Arizona is getting out hit that means they have the puck more than Vegas does. So just work on getting pucks in deep and getting in front of the net on a skilled goaltender like Marc-Andre Fleury.
Obviously when you play a team that has had success in the post season, and is more skilled on paper it is easy to assume you are going to be beat.
It is important to remember that even a team like Vegas can be beat. They lost 4-3 to Boston last night. The Coyotes played Boston earlier in the week and lost 1-0. We can skate and play with them, they just need to go out and do it.