W.O.T » teams can win the Stanley Cup.If any more

Last February http://www.officialknightsproshop.com/authentic-adidas-oscar-dansk-jersey , the beginning of the end for Mike Yeo unfurled in Nashville, although no one suspected it at the time.The St. Louis Blues‘ coach was sitting pretty on a Tuesday night with a 3-0 lead midway through the third period, his team about to move two points closer to the Predators in the Central Division race with plenty of time to catch them.Then Nashville roared back with three goals in a five-minute span to force overtime and won on a penalty shot by Filip Forsberg. That was the pivotal result in a seven-game losing streak that helped St. Louis miss the playoffs by one point.Article continues below ...Yeo’s Blues never gained any traction this season, either, and after a 2-0 loss Monday night to Los Angeles dropped their record to 7-9-3, the hangman arrived. General manager Doug Armstrong canned his third coach in seven-plus years and promoted Craig Berube on an interim basis. Berube doesn’t exactly get to ease into the new gig, taking St. Louis to Nashville Wednesday night for the first of a home-and-home series with the NHL’s top team. The division rivals square off again Friday night in St. Louis.The first job for Berube is to find a way to get a puck into the net. Monday night’s defeat was the third time in four games the Blues have been blanked. This time, it was by Cal Peterson, he of three games of NHL experience.“It’s hard to win when you don’t score goals,” forward Vladimir Tarasenko told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.The 45-year-old Yeo was the NHL’s second coach to lose his job this season, hours ahead of Edmonton parting ways with Todd McLellan on Tuesday.Los Angeles axed John Stevens on Nov. 3 in favor of Willie Desjardins. Like the Blues, the Kings are off to a slow start and face a serious uphill climb if they are to get into contention.Having gotten a coach fired Authentic Oscar Lindberg Jersey , St. Louis figures to come out with a detailed effort Wednesday night. But it went 0-for-4 last season against the Predators (15-5-1), and with key forwards like Patrick Maroon, Alexander Steen and Jaden Schwartz injured, scoring goals against Pekka Rinne doesn’t look like it will be easy.Rinne (8-2-1, 1.69 goals-against average, .942 save percentage) came up big for Nashville in a 3-2 victory Monday night over Tampa Bay, stopping 29 of 31 shots. He got help from defenseman Mattias Ekholm, who denied the Lightning a tying goal in the last 10 seconds by knocking a puck away from the goal line after it trickled off and behind Rinne.“We knew we were going to get pressured hard there at the end with their skill and six guys on the ice,” Rinne said. “But our guys did a great job — we blocked a lot of shots and made it hard for them.”The Predators might regain the services of All-Star defenseman P.K. Subban, who’s sat out the last three games with a lower-body injury.The Blues are expected to start Jake Allen (5-5-3, 3.33, .895) Reilly Smith Jersey , who has ceded just one goal in each of his last three outings. LAS VEGAS (AP) The bookies in this gambling city have to be getting a bit nervous.Hockey fans, though, are nothing short of ecstatic.They screamed, danced and cheered as the goals came one right after another in a first period blitz Thursday night as the Vegas Golden Knights remained undefeated in the playoffs by dominating the San Jose Sharks 7-0 in the opening game of the Western Conference semifinals.The hottest show on the Las Vegas Strip got even hotter as the Knights – who were 200-1 at many sports books to win the Stanley Cup before the season began – opened their second playoff series with a rout of the Sharks that was over before the Zambonis hit the ice.This had nothing to do with the so-called Vegas Flu that has overcome some visiting teams who might have not resisted some of the pleasures on the Las Vegas Strip. This was a simple beat down, by a group of players who had never been together on the ice before the season began.”It’s not going to be like this every night,” Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. ”We’re going to enjoy this and move on.”Once again, the Knights played like no expansion team ever before. Once again, they showed that perhaps the fantasy of bringing the Stanley Cup to the Las Vegas Strip may not be such a fantasy after all.And once again, 18,444 fans sang ”Viva Las Vegas” and went home happy – but not before watching Fleury join them in doing the wave in the closing minutes.”It’s a great home crowd,” Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said. ”We like them a lot.”There’s a lot to like about a team that a year ago was nothing more than an expansion project with an uncertain future. Now the Knights are tearing through the playoffs like a hot dice thrower at the craps table.That might be a problem at the sports books, which are on the hook for possibly millions if the Knights should win it all. But it’s playing out nicely around the rest of Las Vegas Michael Ferland Jersey Womens , which is awash in Knights merchandise as the city that has never had a major sports team eagerly embraces one that is its very own.If getting to the playoffs was seen as almost impossible before the season began, the Knights are 5-1 in sports books on the Strip to win it all, just behind Nashville and Tampa Bay as favorites.With good reason. The Knights are the only remaining unbeaten team in the playoffs, and have the hottest goalie around. Fleury, picked up from Pittsburgh in the expansion draft, got his third shutout of the playoffs and has allowed only three goals in five games.He didn’t allow any against the Sharks, stopping 33 shots to record the shutout.”I don’t go looking at my stats,” Fleury said. ”A win is a win and I’ll try my best to get my team a win. That’s what it’s all about.”The team that proudly declares itself Vegas Born thrilled a raucous crowd at the T-Mobile arena, scoring three goals within a span of 1:31 in the first period to pretty much put the game away early.Against a team that – like the Knights – swept their opening series, they turned the game into a rout early. Seven players scored goals, though with Fleury in net there was no way seven would be needed.”You don’t get extra points for winning by a touchdown like they did,” San Jose coach Peter DeBoer said. ”We just have to be better.”Earlier William Karlsson Jersey , Knights general manager George McPhee talked about how good the team he put together might be. But even he had to be surprised at the ease the Knights, coming off a nine-day layoff after sweeping the Los Angeles Kings, won their second-round opener.”We think we’re a pretty good club but we’ll keep trying to do what we do and see where it takes us,” McPhee said. ”We haven’t really looked at the season in its totality before it started, or the playoffs in its totality.”The formula for the Knights has been as simple as it has been effective. With some top talent there for the taking in the expansion draft the Knights combined a fast, swarming attack with stellar work of Fleury to win their division.Nothing changed in the opening game against the Sharks except the goals came early and often.”We play fast, we play quick, we play direct hockey,” Gallant said. ”So far it’s worked for us.”The Knights have done all of that, and more to move into the serious conversation about what teams can win the Stanley Cup.If any more proof was needed, even the bookies are believers now.—-Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org or http://twitter.com/timdahlberg