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Golden Knights focused on game plan as Benn returns for Game 6 following suspension

Posted on by Jillian Wagner

The Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars are in the middle of tight and competitive Western Conference Final series, with Game 6 set for tonight at American Airlines Center in Dallas (5 p.m., ESPN).

The winner of this series will go on to face the Florida Panthers and continue to chase the ultimate dream of lifting Lord Stanley’s Cup.

The Dallas Stars organization did it back in 1999, defeating the Buffalo Sabres in six games. It was the second of three straight appearances in the Western Conference Final and the first of back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Final; Dallas lost to New Jersey in six games in 2000.

Since then, the Stars have advanced to the Western Conference Final three additional times. Dallas lost in six games to Detroit in 2008, lost in six games to Tampa Bay in 2020 and is currently fighting to force a Game 7 against the Golden Knights.

For Vegas, this is trip No. 4 to the Western Conference Final (or its equivalent, in the case of 2021). The Golden Knights lost to the Capitals in five games in Vegas’ record-smashing inaugural campaign, fell to the Stars in five games in 2020 and lost to Montreal in six games in 2021.

In this series, the Golden Knights held a 3-0 lead against the Stars but, after losing Games 4 and 5, now face their biggest test of the season.

Three of five games in this third-round matchup have been decided in overtime, and four have been tied in the third period.

The only exception was Game 3.

The Golden Knights held a 2-0 series lead heading into Game 3 in Dallas. The Stars were desperate to get back in the series after losing two tight games in overtime in Las Vegas.

Vegas took an early 1-0 lead when Jonathan Marchessault scored 1:11 into the contest.

Less than a minute later, with his team trailing 1-0 in the game and 2-0 in the series, Stars captain Jamie Benn delivered a vicious and needless cross-check to the head and neck area of Golden Knights captain Mark Stone.

Stone, who has had two back surgeries in the last year and who has been targeted by cross-checks to the back after the whistle throughout the postseason, was already down on the ice when Benn made his move; Stone was not injured on the play.

Benn was ejected from the game and assessed a five-minute major, which the Golden Knights used to double their lead just under six minutes into the first period. The power-play marker came immediately after a shorthanded 2-on-1 chance for the Stars and roughly four minutes into a largely ineffective power play for the Golden Knights. But Vegas capitalized on the rush and made Dallas pay for Benn’s actions.

The Golden Knights scored again 1:13 later to end goaltender Jake Oettinger’s night, and Alex Pietrangelo’s second-period tally officially put the game out of reach 8:28 into the middle frame. The Golden Knights went on to win Game 3 by a final score of 4-0 to take a commanding 3-0 series lead.

Benn could only watch as his team – and its fanbase – unraveled.

Max Domi lost his composure at the end of the second period, and the fans followed suit, littering the ice with enough food and trash to force the referees to send the players to the locker room with 21.6 seconds remaining in the second period. The Stars organization issued an apology the following day.

Benn declined to address the media after Game 3.

Instead, veteran leaders like Joe Pavelski and Tyler Seguin were left to field questions.

“He was tied up and engaged and went for a little extra,” Pavelski said of the play. “Emotions get the best of all of us at some point. … He wears it as much as anybody. He’s a tremendous leader. We never questioned that. Now, as a group, we’ve got to rally together.”

Seguin put the loss on the team, saying Benn is “one of, if not the best captain in this league.”

Stars coach Pete DeBoer said that Benn “made a mistake” and that Benn “feels really badly about it; I don’t think anyone in the building feels worse.”

Benn faced the media the following day, prior to his hearing with the NHL’s Department of Player Safety. It was there that he offered his version of events.

When asked what happened on the play, Benn said it was “Just [an] unfortunate play. I think I just need to be more responsible with my body [and] my stick. I put my team in a tough situation, so it’s pretty unfortunate.”

Benn was asked if anything happened that led up to or sparked the play.

“No,” he said. “Just heat of the moment. Like I said, I need to be more responsible with my body and my stick.”

When asked to explain how a player could get caught up in a moment like that, Benn’s response was brief but straightforward.

“It was my first shift of a game on home ice, when you’re pretty jacked up and down 1-0, so you want to try and get your team going. Emotions are high, and it’s just an unfortunate play.”

Benn stated that he not spoken to Stone because “you usually don’t talk to other players in a playoff series on other teams.” He added that he saw Stone “was OK, so that was great.” That’s not much of a reach since Pietrangelo seemingly hadn’t made amends with Leon Draisaitl by the time they met in the handshake line.

During Benn’s press conference, a reporter referenced DeBoer’s comment from the night before about how no one felt worse than Benn.

In response, Benn said, “I mean, your team’s down 0-2 in a series, 1-0 in a game, and you put them on a five-minute penalty kill. So you can probably imagine how that feels.”

His answer indicated that he was regretful for putting his team in a tough spot; he did not express that same sentiment about the play, though, which could have seriously injured Stone.

That’s not overly surprising since Benn was trying to avoid facing supplemental discipline. Also, it’s not difficult to believe that the veteran felt responsible for derailing the Stars’ efforts in Game 3.

However, it was in response to a question asking if Benn would have done anything differently on the play that he offered an actual explanation for his actions on the ice; that’s where things got less reasonable.

“Obviously, didn’t want to take a five-minute penalty, but the game happens fast,” he said. “Emotions are high, and, obviously, would have liked to not fall on him and, I guess, use my stick as a landing point.”

Again, Benn couldn’t say much with a possible suspension looming, but the lack of remorse or accountability likely didn’t help his cause in his hearing with Player Safety.

It also wasn’t a particularly plausible account.

He had time to watch the replay, gather his thoughts and craft an answer, but his argument was that he “would have liked to not fall on him” and that he used “his stick as a landing point.”

In other words, according to Benn, he simply fell down and braced his fall with his stick. The fact that Stone’s head and neck were in that exact location was, apparently, just “unfortunate.”

Player Safety didn’t quite see it that way.

“With Stone on the ice in front of him, Benn puts both hands on his stick, drops to his knees and drives his stick into the head and neck area of Stone with force,” the official ruling explained. “This is cross-checking. It is important to note that Benn is in control of this play at all times and makes the decision to deliver a forceful cross-check to a prone player.”

The explanation goes on to say, “This is simply an unnecessarily dangerous decision by Benn, and it is delivered with sufficient intent and force to merit supplemental discipline.”

That supplemental discipline consisted of a two-game suspension for Dallas’ captain of 10 years and its second-leading scorer from the regular season (78 points).

“From our group’s perspective, I think everybody wants to see Jamie Benn play again,” DeBoer said the day after Game 3 before the suspension was issued. “I think we all want to make sure his season doesn’t end on a note like that. I think the guys are gonna work their ass off to make sure that they give him a chance to play again.”

To their credit, the Stars have done just that.

After losing the first three games, the Stars have bounced back to win consecutive games and make this a series.

The first was a 3-2 overtime victory on home ice in Game 4. The second was Dallas’ 4-2 victory in enemy territory on Saturday. It was another close game for most of the night, but the Stars pulled away with two goals in the span of 1:27 in the third period to take Game 5.

Golden Knights falter in 4-2 loss to Stars, fail to close out series in Game 5
The Vegas Golden Knights squandered another opportunity to wrap up the Western Conference Final and instead suffered a 4-2 defeat at the hands of the Dallas Stars in Game 5 Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena. It was a 2-2 game at the midway point of the third period, but Ty
Knights On IceJillian Wagner

Benn has now served his suspension.

The Dallas Stars’ season is still alive.

That means Benn will, indeed, return to the Stars lineup tonight in Game 6, joining a motivated Dallas club looking to force a Game 7 with the support of a raucous home crowd.

Only four teams in NHL history have come back to win a series after trailing 3-0.

The Toronto Maple Leafs fought back in the 1942 Stanley Cup Final, and the New York Islanders managed it in the first round of the 1975 playoffs.

Thirty-five years elapsed before another team accomplished the feat; the first team to do it in the modern era was the Philadelphia Flyers back in 2010. The Flyers trailed the Boston Bruins 3-0 in the series and then fell into a 3-0 hole in the first period of Game 7. However, the Flyers went on to complete the historic comeback to advance to the Eastern Conference Final.

It happened again four years later when Alec Martinez and the Los Angeles Kings erased a 3-0 deficit against the San Jose Sharks in the first round.

It has never happened in a Conference Final.

The Stars are hoping to be trendsetters; the Golden Knights are hoping to put this series to rest.

Both clubs will be plenty motivated.

For the Stars, some of that inspiration undoubtedly will come from their captain’s return.

“We just need him to be himself,” Stars defenseman Thomas Harley said Sunday. “Our leader out there, he’s our captain, so we know he’s going to bring the intensity, and we’re just going to follow him.”

DeBoer said Benn is “an angry bear walking around waiting to play again, so I think he’s on pins and needles.” He added that Benn is “not a really good spectator” and that bringing him back into a lineup that has won back-to-back games is “a good problem to have. Your captain’s coming back in the lineup; guys have battled their ass off to give him a chance to play again.”

For the Golden Knights, Benn’s return doesn’t change anything.

Vegas responded to Benn’s actions that night by scoring on the ensuing power play, maintaining their composure and winning Game 3.

Though Marchessault called the play “pretty disgusting” during the first intermission, Stone set the tone and put the matter behind them the following day.

“Not gonna sit here and say I loved it … but we got the five-minute power play, … and we got a big goal from it, got a ton of momentum for our team. I didn’t love what transpired, but it got handled the right way; we stuck together as a team, and now the focus is on Game 4.”

That focus didn’t yield the results the Golden Knights were hoping for, though. The same was true Saturday in Game 5.

Now, two games later, the Golden Knights are preparing for a Game 6 on the road against a confident Stars club that will get a boost from its captain being back in the mix.

But Vegas isn’t focused on his return.

“They’re 2-0 without him, so I don’t know,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said Sunday. “I think we’re worried about our own team right now, to be honest with you.”

Reilly Smith also said the team is focused on its own game plan.

“[Benn has] been a good player in his career,” Smith said Sunday. “He’s good on faceoffs. There’s certain things like that that he can help their team out; there’s also things that can hurt his team. So we’ll see who we’re up to playing against, but we’re mostly focused on what we can do. We know if we come out with our best game, we’ll win the game. We just have to really focus on what we’re going to do and put our game plan into effect.”

To execute that game plan, Vegas needs its leaders to step up.

“The guys have to draw on their experience now,” Cassidy said. “You want to use it when you need it, and we need it now. … We do have to understand that we can’t keep playing the way we have the last two games and expect them to go away.”

The way Vegas has played the last two games has been uncharacteristic; for example, the Golden Knights had 24 giveaways in Game 5, and Dallas’ forecheck and slot pressure overwhelmed them. The Golden Knights have strayed from their game, failing to close out the series on two occasions.

Those chances are running out.

The Golden Knights need to match Dallas’ desperation in tonight’s game.

“The urgency…that comes from the individual,” Cassidy said following the team’s Game 5 loss. “We all know what’s at stake.”

The fact that the pressure and momentum of the series have shifted could force their hand, though it’s not something the Golden Knights don’t already know.

Both Stone and Martinez referenced it in their post-game interviews.

“I don’t think we’ve brought our best for the last two games, but we’ve still been in a good spot to win the game,” Stone said. “Definitely gotta bring a little bit better effort, start playing a little more desperate with a chance to wrap it up.”

Martinez had a similar message.

“We’re playing a desperate hockey team,” he said. “No one said it would be easy; we gotta match their urgency and desperation.”

Smith added that the Golden Knights need to play with a killer instinct.

“Obviously, when you have teams down, you really have to have a bit of a killer instinct and make sure that you’re making things difficult on them, and I think the last two games we haven’t done that. We’ve given up free chances. So it’ll be important next game to get back to the style of play that’s made us so successful in these playoffs; really limiting teams to shots to the outside and not giving them second-chance opportunities.”

If the Golden Knights strike out once again tonight, a winner-take-all Game 7 will decide one way or another if Vegas’ march to the Cup will live on or come to a crashing halt.

The home-ice advantage Vegas fought for all season means that that game would be in Las Vegas, but the Golden Knights are hoping it doesn’t come to that.

DeBoer, Benn and the Stars enter tonight’s game with confidence and hunger.

“I also think the pressure ramps up, and we all handle pressure differently,” DeBoer said. “That’s a big pressure to blow a 3-0 lead.”

That hasn’t happened yet.

The Golden Knights still lead 3-2.

Win a game, win a series; that’s all Vegas is focused on tonight.

Talking Points