Golden Knights’ top 5 games: Here’s No. 3 on the RJ’s list

Editor’s note: With the NHL season suspended indefinitely because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Review-Journal will count down the Golden Knights’ top five games of the season, in our opinion:

The game: Game No. 23, a 4-2 home win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Nov. 19.

The background: These teams must have felt as if they were looking in a mirror before puck drop.

The Knights and Maple Leafs entered the season with high expectations. They also had a hard time living up to them at the start of the season.

The Knights’ struggle to play consistent hockey was on full display early, and their 10-9-3 record showed it. The Leafs’ 9-9-4 mark was worse. More alarmingly, a Toronto team built around high-flying and highly paid forwards was tied for 12th in goals per game.

The Leafs were close to their breaking point. Turns out, this game was it.

What happened: Marc-Andre Fleury happened.

The Knights goaltender has not often been at his best this season, but he was in this game. The Leafs had a 39-29 edge in scoring chances and 21-13 edge in high-danger scoring chances. Fleury refused to be beaten.

His heroics allowed the Knights to build a 3-1 lead with 9:38 left after goals by forwards Cody Glass, Tomas Nosek and Mark Stone.

Toronto left wing Zach Hyman’s power-play goal with 7:13 remaining made the score 3-2 and set up a dramatic finish. The Maple Leafs began pressing for the tying goal until Fleury went deep into his bag of tricks to shut the door on them.

Toronto right wing Ilya Mikheyev skated to the left circle with less than four minutes left, and Fleury went to the top right corner of the crease to challenge the shot. The puck caromed off the post and to Leafs center Nic Petan near the bottom of the right circle.

Petan had a wide-open net and a goaltender out of position. Or so he thought.

As Petan lofted a backhand shot toward the crease, Fleury leaped — left glove hand outstretched — back toward the net. He snatched the puck out of the air with 3:43 to play, and the Knights’ lead was preserved.

That was it for Toronto. Cody Eakin scored an empty-net goal with 21 seconds remaining.

Game MVP: It’s going to the gravity-defying goaltender.

Fleury made 31 saves in winning his 450th game — the seventh goalie to hit that mark — and his one on Petan will stand the test of time. Fleury’s agent, Allan Walsh, dubbed it “the save of the century” on Twitter. It was No. 3 on Sportsnet’s top 10 saves of the season in February.

It might not have been his best as a Knight — that honor might go to his playoff saves against Mark Scheifele, which the NHL included on its video of the best saves of the decade — but it was still great. And it’s likely going to be the moment he’s remembered for this season.

“I got a little giggle, a little smile,” Fleury said. “Just happy it didn’t go in. As a goalie, those are the saves that make you feel (like a skater feels when they score a goal). Those are the saves I love to play for.”

The aftermath: The game was raucously celebrated in Las Vegas. In Toronto, hockey-crazy Canada’s largest city, not so much.

Leafs coach Mike Babcock was fired the next day, and the team promoted American Hockey League coach Sheldon Keefe. The Leafs had the eighth-best points percentage in the NHL after the change.

It remains to be seen whether the 56-year-old Babcock, who has 700 wins, 14 playoff appearances and a Stanley Cup to his name, will coach again.

The Knights failed to build much off the win and switched up their defensive zone coverage four games later.

Why it’s No. 3: One of the NHL’s star goaltenders did something so spectacular it potentially ended a respected coach’s career. What else needs to be said?

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.