It was between periods on Tuesday night when Tomas Hertl said during an interview that his Vegas Golden Knights team would win for a teammate who had been ejected.
That they would have his back and take Game 5 of this best-of-seven playoff series from the Anaheim Ducks.
That the player meant too much to the team not to rally for him.
That it was time to step up for Brayden McNabb.
And they did in the most dramatic of fashions.
The Knights are one win from a spot in the Western Conference finals after a 3-2 overtime victory against Anaheim in front of a thrilled crowd of 18,089 at T-Mobile Arena.
Game 6 is on Thursday night in Anaheim.
Puck was gone
It certainly didn’t help the Knights when losing McNabb to a five-minute major and game misconduct for interference.
There were nine minutes left in the first period when McNabb was assessed the penalty after checking Anaheim forward Ryan Poehling into the glass near the penalty box.
Poehling laid on the ice for several minutes before being helped to the locker room.
It was a clean hit by McNabb but came late. The puck was gone.
And it took from the Knights their best defenseman, the guy who gets it most at the blue line.
“It’s always tough to see a guy lying on the ground,” Hertl said. “I don’t know what actually happened, but McNabb is always there for us. He just grinds all the way around. He does such a great job for us.”
Hertl tried making the biggest of differences, tried backing up his own words in support of McNabb, by scoring from the doorstep with 15:12 left in the third period.
The goal — Hertl’s second of the playoffs after not tallying one since March 4 — gave the Knights a 2-1 advantage.
It would last more than 12 minutes.
But the Ducks would tie things and force overtime when Olen Zellweger beat Knights goalie Carter Hart glove side with 3:05 remaining in the third period.
“For tonight and hopefully for the future,” Knights coach John Tortorella said of Hertl scoring again.
It could have actually been worse for the Knights, who lost leading goal scorer Pavel Dorofeyev with 11 minutes left in the second period after the forward blocked a shot off his right knee and skated off favoring the leg. But he would return.
And do this: It was Dorofeyev who would score his second of the game with the winner in extra time.
“It’s just my job,” Dorofeyev said. “I just had to get myself together and get back on the ice (following the blocked shot). Just regular stuff. Just a stinger.”
To think: The Knights were third in the Pacific Division when Tortorella took over as coach with eight games remaining in the regular season. What an impressive run it has been under him.
“When you have a 2-2 series, I think it’s about energy,” Tortorella said. “This is where players like to play, in these types of situations and games. Where it’s scrutinized and the stakes are higher as far as it basically being a three-game series.”
The energy was there to start because this is the type of game everyone had expected and desired from the series all along.
Up-and-down, back-and-forth play. Clean breakouts. Controlled chaos. It went that way throughout, by far the most entertaining of the five games thus far.
Backing it up
“To be honest, we win one, we lose one, win one, lose one in (this series),” forward Ivan Barbashev said. “The good part of it is through the regular season we were able to win a lot when we were down. In those moments, we stay calm and keep playing.
“We’ve been here multiple times throughout the years, playing in Game 5s when a series is tied. We just keep our minds straight. It’s always up to us to play our game and stick to the plan. Keep putting pressure on them.”
They did just that and came through with an enormous victory.
They backed up Hertl’s prediction of winning one for McNabb.
For their teammate.
One win from the conference finals.
Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. Follow @edgraney on X.