3 Tactical Areas Of Improvement Available For The Golden Knights

As the puck is set to drop in Minnesota, the Golden Knights will look to wash the sour taste of Game 2 out of their mouths and regain control of the series. To do so, nothing will be more important than cleaning up the turnover epidemic that led to a barrage of early goals for the Wild.

As we dig deeper, though, there are three other areas where Vegas can improve to take back home ice.

Exploit Minnesota’s Conservative Neutral Zone Defense

It’s hard to pull positives out of a game in which a team falls behind by four goals in less than 24 minutes, but one place that might show up as the series goes on is how Vegas attacked the Wild the rest of the way. Minnesota is, by nature, a conservative team; they push that even further when they get a lead. After the Golden Knights went behind, they got a good look at the Wild’s compact neutral zone setup and had many reps attempting to enter the zone against it.

Minnesota uses a 1-2-2 neutral zone setup, similar to what Vegas and about 70% of the NHL use. However, with the lead, the Wild’s two defensemen are instructed to stay as close to the center of the ice as possible while still gapping up against entries. That means there’s a lot more room to the outside for controlled entries. The reason Minnesota does this is because it limits the number of rush chances they allow. They’re fine with letting their opponent enter the zone with possession if it means there’s never a player breaking in on goal up the middle.

For the last 45 minutes of Game 2, VGK went up against this style of neutral zone defense, and they started to figure it out more and more as the game went on. The best example is on the Tomas Hertl goal. Hertl has the puck in the middle of the ice and is surrounded. As the defense collapses towards the center, instead of rushing towards the blue line looking to dump the puck in, Hertl hesitates and waits for Brandon Saad to gain speed on the outside. He hits him with a pass and the Golden Knights get a speedy, controlled entry that ultimately leads to a goal.

The longer the series goes on, the more opportunities Vegas will have to read and react to Minnesota’s conservative style. Just from the beginning of the 2nd period to the end of the 3rd, VGK improved entering the zone. Imagine what it might look like two or three games from now.

More Attention To Weak-Side Options In Defensive Zone

In this series, the Wild are well aware of how strong, stable, and steady the Golden Knights are in the middle of the ice in the defensive zone. For three seasons under Bruce Cassidy, Vegas has been one of the hardest teams to break down when all 10 players are in the zone. Minnesota has come with a few weapons to combat it, and one of them in particular has hurt VGK on multiple occasions.

If you cut the rink in half, the weak side is the half where the puck is not. In hockey, that’s pretty much always the side that has fewer players in it. John Hynes, Minnesota’s head coach, believes for the Wild to have success they must spread out the Vegas defense. His solution to that has been to send pucks hard and fast to the weak side of the ice. This can be done by all-world passes like Kirill Kaprizov pulled off in Game 1, or more commonly, it’s done by rimming the puck around the boards to relieve pressure and extend zone time.

The Golden Knights struggled a bit against this in Game 1 and it continued to be a focus in Game 2. Because the Wild have this implemented as an option in the offensive zone, there will often be a player lurking on the weak side of the ice. Marcus Foligno happened to be that player on the Wild’s second goal in Game 2, and neither Pavel Dorofeyev nor Shea Theodore put their body in front of him.

This one simply comes down to awareness. The opposite side winger and defenseman have to be ready for the seemingly non-threatening player behind them to spring into action. If heads are on swivels and feet are moving, this strategy will bear no more fruit for Minnesota moving forward.

Simplify Against The Big 3

Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, and Joel Eriksson Ek have dominated the first two games for the Wild. They have a combined five goals and nine points and have wreaked havoc on Vegas’ defense every time they’ve been on the ice.

These aren’t the first superstars the Golden Knights have faced in a playoff series, and it’s not even the first time those superstars have gone off on them early in a series (Leon Draisaitl had 6 goals after 2 games in 2023). So they know how to defend this caliber of player. What’s gone wrong hasn’t always been tactical issues, it’s more so been uncharacteristic physical problems.

Minnesota’s top line has Vegas’ attention, and because of it, they are speeding up everything they’re trying to do when those guys are on the ice. VGK need to dumb it down, at least early in games. Simpler exits, shorter passes, easier plays to force them to work harder to get the puck back. Too often the Golden Knights have handed the puck over without the Wild’s stars even having to do much to get it.

A zero-sum shift against Kaprizov, Boldy, and Eriksson Ek is more than enough in this series. Get the puck, get it across the blue line, and then keep it away from them as long as possible. That alone will literally cut Minnesota’s attack in half, if not more.