Golden Knights, Sharks don’t view series as overly chippy
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Nate Schmidt was once part of the seemingly annual matchup, the one in which Washington meets Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup playoffs and the Penguins almost always — nine of 10 times, actually — emerge the winner.
He was on the other side.
“It carried over so that every game we played against them, no matter when, was a big game,” said Schmidt, a Golden Knights defenseman and member of the Capitals from 2013 to 2017. “That happens in the playoffs — rivalries are created, especially against a division opponent.
“It’s playoff hockey. Tensions fly, guys get sucked into things a little bit more, it just happens. Each team is trying to provoke the other and see if they will bite and get them off their game.”
The word chippy might be described as aggressively belligerent, but to a player Saturday, the Golden Knights didn’t think their Western Conference semifinal series against San Jose has been anything out of the ordinary for this time of the season.
The Sharks, by the way, concur.
Vegas can win the best-of-seven series with a victory Sunday at SAP Center. A loss would send the series back to T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday for Game 7.
Hockey history is not without its all-time trash talkers, and there wasn’t a hairy situation on ice that Theo Fleury and Chris Chelios and Chris Pronger and Claude Lemieux and Bobby Clarke and others wouldn’t gladly embrace and exacerbate.
But there is a difference between physical and dangerous, between spontaneous and intentional.
Toughness is one thing; dirty is another.
A first-round sweep of the Kings and now a semifinal series that has been extended to a sixth game against the Sharks might have come against Pacific Division opponents, but those playing for Vegas insist that’s where the similarities end in regard to the whole belligerent concept.
“Things got real chippy against Los Angeles,” Knights forward Alex Tuch said. “This hasn’t been the same. It hasn’t really gotten out of hand at all. It hasn’t been overly cheap. It’s definitely physical, but we’re prepared for that. You just have to be able to hit back.”
Numbers suggest Vegas has held its own and then some, being credited with 225 hits to 191 for the Sharks after five games, and while such stats are often more inflated than balloons at a child’s birthday party, the Knights haven’t backed down when stuff gets all riled up.
“It’s the playoffs,” Sharks center Logan Couture said. “You see a team seven times in 14 days, you’re not going to like them.”
It’s true forward Evander Kane of the Sharks was suspended for Game 2 after a cross-check to the face of Vegas forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, and yet this particular series hasn’t featured what you might call a Drew Doughty Moment.
You remember the illegal check to the head that Doughty of the Kings laid on William Carrier of the Knights in Game 1 of the previous series, the one that earned the Los Angeles defenseman a game suspension?
“In the playoffs, every shift matters a little more,” Bellemare said. “The Kings series was much more physical. This one has been quite normal.”
There have been some checks that could have led to a second look by the league — ones from Brent Burns of the Sharks and Shea Theodore of the Knights in Game 5 come to mind — but nothing that either team thinks has created any more of a contentious atmosphere than the playoffs already provide.
Vegas was credited with 26 hits in the first period Friday, determined not only to bounce back from a 4-0 loss in Game 4 but also to set a tone in a swing game matchup that could go a long ways in determining who would win the series.
Things should be even more intense Sunday, the Sharks at the doorstep of elimination and inspired by what can be a deafening home-ice advantage.
“The longer a series goes and the more you play each other in a season, you’re going to build that hate for one another,” Kane said. “It’s no different with these guys.”
The Knights, by the way, concur.
It’s hockey in April.
Chippy is just part of it all.
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Contact columnist Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.