{"id":648190,"date":"2026-05-17T07:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T07:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/648190\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T07:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T07:24:09","slug":"golden-knights-hoping-special-teams-momentum-will-slow-avalanche-in-west-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/648190\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Knights hoping special teams, momentum will slow Avalanche in West Final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Golden Knights defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/rasmus-andersson-8478397\" title=\"Rasmus Andersson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rasmus Andersson<\/a> echoed that sentiment from the defensive side, noting that Colorado won the Presidents&#8217; Trophy for a reason.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have been a very consistent team all year,\u201d Andersson said. \u201cGreat team, we\u2019re facing a lot of challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One area Golden Knights coach John Tortorella anticipates his team will need to take advantage of is special teams. Colorado&#8217;s penalty kill has been a liability in the postseason with a 79.3 penalty kill percentage.<\/p>\n<p>To complicate matters for Colorado, the Golden Knights lead all playoff teams with four short-handed goals, and are converting 25.7 percent of their power-play opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you&#8217;re in the playoffs, special teams are important,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cIt&#8217;s one of the areas in a series that you do a lot of concentration on how the other team kills, how their power play plays. Because a lot of five-on-five is just instinctive play. You have a good idea of your foundation. But the special teams you really zero in on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The biggest thing the Golden Knights have going into the series is momentum.<\/p>\n<p>Vegas clinched both of its first two series with dominating showings in Game 6, and Tortorella believes that&#8217;s not a coincidence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think the team stayed within themselves. They&#8217;re flatline,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cThey don&#8217;t get too excited when things are going really well. And they certainly don&#8217;t lose themselves when things struggle. That&#8217;s one of the biggest traits of our team. That&#8217;s why I think you improve as a team when you go through a seven-game series.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Golden Knights defenseman Rasmus Andersson echoed that sentiment from the defensive side, noting that Colorado won the Presidents&#8217;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-648190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}