To the question «Who is the main star of the current play draw -off NHL?» many will confidently call Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. And they will be fair in this opinion. But Sergey, with all his splendor, is far from the only hero of this Stanley Cup. There are enough of them both in Florida itself, which is one step away from reaching the final of the tournament, and in a team that is very likely to become a rival for the Panthers in the battle for the trophy.
Vegas Golden Knights very confidently passed stage of the regular season and became the best club in the Western Conference, but showed themselves even more confidently in the playoffs. «Knights» without any problems coped with «Winnipeg», crushed «Edmonton» with their main world stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draizatl, and now they are close to defeating «Dallas».
The Stars, who objectively looked like perhaps the most balanced team in the playoffs, crumbled before our eyes in a series against the Golden Knights. The collapse of the “stars” began at the end of the second match of the series. “Dallas” was supposed to take that meeting, but instead of equalizing the score in the confrontation, he gave the initiative in the end and allowed “Vegas” to first bounce back and transfer the match to overtime, and then win a strong-willed victory. As a result, the series moved to Dallas with a significant advantage. The Golden Knights and the Stars, with their fans, failed loudly.
Three goals at once during the first seven minutes of the matches were sent by the guests from Las Vegas to the gates of the “stars”, and by this time the outcome of the meeting was actually a foregone conclusion. Everything went out of hand for Dallas: goalkeeper Jake Ettinger, who was replaced after the third goal, failed, team leader Evgeny Dadonov was injured in the starting segment of the game, and Jamie Benn and Max Domi did not cope with emotions at all and framed teammates with great disciplinary fines for outright dirt and rudeness. Naturally, the Dallas fans were also dissatisfied with the performance of their idols, who first disrupted the end of the second period by throwing garbage and food on the site, and then completely left the arena long before the end of the match.
And what about the heroes? At Vegas, one of the main creators of success is Ivan Barbashev. The exchange of the Russian striker from the “St. Louis Blues” in the camp “Golden Knights” in the middle of the season was a very high-profile deal. The «musicians» who have embarked on a path called «perestroika» have lost an incredibly important and useful player. The Knights, on the contrary, have noticeably strengthened: they have acquired an experienced cup fighter — and Ivan, we recall, already has one Stanley Cup in his collection — and an extremely important member of the team in terms of the overall mechanism necessary to achieve success.
br>Right now, Barbashev is an indispensable part of the first line of «Vegas», where he plays with such stars as Jack Eichel and Jonathan Marchesseau. Thanks to this, Ivan not only shows his wrestling skills on the court, but also excels in scoring. The numbers speak for themselves: in 14 playoff games, Barbashev scored 13 points (5 goals and 8 assists). This is already the best result among all Russian hockey players in the current Stanley Cup. In today's game with Dallas, by the way, Ivan scored three effective actions at once (1 + 2) — for the first time in his career in the NHL playoffs.
Although the league named Barbashev only the second star of the meeting, giving the palm to the shutout goaltender of Vegas Edin Hill, the team recognized the Russian as the main hero of the match. quick goal in the opening minutes Hill stepped forward especially in the series against Edmonton he makes a lot of big saves keep fighting yes it is 3-0 in the series but you have to keep playing and building pressure next game will be very difficult for us,» Barbashev said.
But in the next match, the Golden Knights can qualify for the Stanley Cup final — the second in a small but already very eventful franchise history. And there is no doubt that the current “Vegas” is more than ever ready to take the championship, because among all the conference finalists, the “knights” are the richest in the number of Stanley Cup winners in the team. The Golden Knights have six of them at once. And Ivan Barbashev is among them. If he wins the championship, Ivan will become the 15th Russian hockey player with two Stanley Cups.