Special teams inch the Golden Knights closer to another division title with blowout of Jets

Well, the boys are heating up at the right time. Fresh off one of the biggest wins of the season in Colorado, the hard part was over for the Golden Knights, yet they didn't let their foot off the gas. Instead, with a potential Pacific Division championship in their grasp, Vegas kept rolling, dropping a touchdown on the same Jets team that flattened them 4-1 just a few weeks ago.

With only one more regular-season game left, new coach John Tortorella now sits at an absurd 6-0-1 record (talk about a new coach bump), with the team riding a nine-game point streak. Let's dive into what made this an explosive one for Vegas and a critical win in the seeding battle.

A special teams clinic gives Vegas a massive boost

Despite the team's other inconsistencies, one of the biggest positives this year has been the power play and penalty kill units. As it stands, both rank in the top 10 in the league, with the PP sitting at 24.8% and the PK at 81.4%. The former sits as Vegas' second-best ever, after last year, and the latter is tied for the same, after 2020-21.

More relevant to this game, though is that all of that was on display last night, owing to the refs doing the opposite of swallowing their whistles. Vegas and Winnipeg combined for an absurd 12 power-play opportunities on Monday, with eight in the second period alone. Vegas' penalty kill looked more like the power kill all night; they silenced all but one of Winnipeg's opportunities, despite being well-worn-out in the second, and Mark Stone added this SHG off a feed from Jack Eichel, marking the captain's fifth consecutive game with a goal:

Speaking of Jack, he finally added his first power-play goal of the season later in the night, catching the Jets off-guard in front of the net to cap off Vegas' touchdown. Pavel Dorofeyev's power-play goal got him to 20 on the season, and puts him a last-game hat-trick away from 40. A man can dream!

We might finally have a goalie?

Carter Hart is... controversial. Off-ice items aside, I've been apprehensive on him anyways, as he was not particularly good prior to his injury, and uneven in his first start back. That said, even I'll admit he's now been far and away Vegas' best goaltender of the season over these last few games; seriously, go watch his sprawling save against the Avs again.

And for yet another game, he turned in a solid performance, allowing just two goals on 25 shots against Winnipeg. He's allowed three or more goals just once in six games since his return, coming in his literal first start back, which is the exact sort of decent goaltending Vegas has desperately searched for all year.

The advanced stats back this up, with him posting a pretty damn good 1.07 goals saved above expected last night. At the most critical time of the year, Vegas may have solved its biggest problem, which is great news for us and terrible news for the rest of the league.

Up next, the final game of the regular season. It's a rematch with Seattle, and a win clinches the division for us. Here's to back to back Pacific titles, hopefully!

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