WINNIPEG Guillermo Heredia Seattle Mariners Jersey , Manitoba — If you had put money down last fall on the Vegas Golden Knights to qualify for the playoffs, let alone the Stanley Cup Final, you would have run the risk of being committed to an insane asylum.

Well, prepare to be fitted for a straitjacket.

The first-year franchise stands on the precipice of representing the Western Conference in the battle for Lord Stanley’s cup after defeating the Winnipeg Jets 3-2 at home on Friday night to take a 3-1 stranglehold on the best-of-seven series.

The Golden Knights hope to punch their ticket against the Washington Capitals or the Tampa Bay Lightning by beating the Jets on Sunday afternoon at Bell MTS Place.

Since winning the series opener 4-2 last Saturday, the Jets have lost three straight games, something they haven’t done in more than a year.

The Golden Knights have made a habit of quashing the Jets’ momentum in each of the last three games by scoring within two shifts of Winnipeg tying the score, In fact, the momentum lasted a total of 143 seconds in all three games, including just 12 seconds in Game 3.

After the Jets outshot the Golden Knights 37-29 on Friday and utterly dominated the third period, Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice was far from despondent Josh Jackson Color Rush Jersey , calling Game 4 his team’s finest hour.

“We like a lot of things that we did. You know, stiff opponent, they don’t make it easy on you,” he said at his postgame press conference. “But the work level and the compete level was really good (from) start to finish. So that’s what you ask of your group, to come out and compete as hard as they can. There are always going to be things you think you can do better, move the puck a little cleaner. But you had 85 shot attempts. You’re playing in the right end of the rink.”

Vegas forward James Neal is eager to make up for last year’s shortcomings when he played for the Nashville Predators, who were defeated by Pittsburgh in the 2017 finals.

“We’re one win away, of course, but we have to keep battling,” he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “We can’t take our foot off the gas now. We have to continue to grow and get better Tyler Anderson Colorado Rockies Jersey , and we’ll do that.”

If necessary, Game 6 would be back in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

If the Golden Knights can win one of the next three games, they won’t be the first NHL expansion franchise to make the finals, but they’ll certainly be the most remarkable.

When the St. Louis Blues played the Montreal Canadiens in the spring of 1968, they represented the West Division, made up entirely of expansion franchises, so one first-year team was going to make it no matter what. The Blues were swept in four games.

And when the Toronto Arenas won the Cup in 1918, there were only four teams in the league at the start of the regular season and only three at the end, after the folding of the Montreal Wanderers after their rink burned down.

Even with the Montreal Canadiens eliminated from postseason contention, Brendan Gallagher keeps competing hard every single night.

Gallagher scored twice Ronnie Harrison Color Rush Jersey , including his 30th goal of the season, and Carey Price snapped a seven-game losing streak as Montreal defeated the skidding Detroit Red Wings 4-2 on Monday.

”Those 30 goals are well deserved,” Canadiens coach Claude Julien said about Gallagher. ”It’s an example of what hard work and perseverance and commitment and dedication is all about. He never complains about anything. He goes about and does his job. That’s what you expect from your leaders.”

With the two goals, Gallagher pushed his total to 49 points this season. His previous career high was 47.

”It’s nice,” the feisty winger said about reaching the 30-goal plateau. ”You want to contribute and you want to score. It’s also nice to get it out of the way and stop talking about myself and get back to finishing hard and finishing the right way.”

Paul Byron and Alex Galchenyuk also scored for Montreal in a matchup of Original Six franchises who will miss the playoffs. Price made 26 saves for his first win since Feb. 4. He had been 0-5-2 since then.

”We have five games remaining and we want to finish the right way game after game and really push each other to carry this over into next year,” Gallagher said.

Gustav Nyquist and Tyler Bertuzzi scored for Detroit, and Jared Coreau stopped 27 shots in his fifth game of the season. He is 0-4-0.

Both the Canadiens and Red Wings will take part in the draft lottery this spring. Montreal is 26th in the overall NHL standings, three points ahead of 27th-place Detroit.

The Red Wings have won just once in their last 14 games (1-12-1).

”We’ve been real good through the stretch,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. ”We’ve played really good hockey. We’ve deserved better results. No chance is that good enough tonight. We have to be way better.

”Our attention to detail, not good enough. Our intensity Paul Worrilow Color Rush Jersey , not good enough. Winning puck battles, doing all the little things it takes, just too many guys not going.”

Gallagher scored his first of the game and team-leading 29th of the season at 4:27 of the second period to give the Canadiens a 2-1 lead. The forward threw the puck on net from the corner of the ice and it bounced off Red Wings defenseman Danny DeKeyser’s skate and in.

The Edmonton native, who has scored in three consecutive games, got his 30th at 9:32 when he tipped a shot by Mike Reilly on net. The puck went off Coreau’s skate and landed in the crease before the goalie accidentally knocked it in himself.

”Those are the ones I’m used to scoring,” said Gallagher, who also had two blocked shots. ”It’s always good when the guys don’t really know that you scored the goals. But any way you can score is obviously nice.”

The 5-foot-9 forward came within inches of his first career hat trick. With 4:26 remaining, Jeff Petry’s shot from the blue line trickled past Coreau. Gallagher came close to knocking it in, but Galchenyuk got his stick on it first to make it 4-2.

”I don’t think there’s a guy who works harder in this locker room,” Petry said about Gallagher. ”He’s one of the guys who’s consistently going to those tough areas and he’s getting rewarded for it.”

Bertuzzi got one back for Detroit at 13:41 of the second when he squeezed a loose puck between Price’s pads.

The teams traded goals in the first period.

Nyquist got the first at 4:41 with a hard one-timer before Byron responded Hayden Hurst Color Rush Jersey , on the power play, with a backhand off the post and in at 18:11 for his 19th.

NOTES: Detroit recalled 21-year-old defenseman Joe Hicketts from Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League. … Several Canadian Olympians were honored in a pregame ceremony, including medalists Kim Boutin, Charles Hamelin, Justine Dufour-Lapointe and Mikael Kingsbury.

UP NEXT

Red Wings: Host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night.

Canadiens: Play at Pittsburgh on Saturday night.

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