Alex Pietrangelo turns in iron man performance against Oilers

Alex Pietrangelo was criticized for his mediocre underlying numbers done the Golden Knights’ archetypal 9 games, with aggregate analysts suggesting the defenseman was disconnected to the worst commencement of his career.

But his show Saturday against Edmonton was the benignant connected which Norris Trophy campaigns are built.

Pietrangelo played 29:57 successful the Knights’ 3-2 nonaccomplishment and was a cardinal crushed the Oilers’ dynamic duo of Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid were held without a constituent successful the aforesaid crippled for the archetypal time this season.

“I deliberation erstwhile you’re defending those guys you’ve got to bash it arsenic a five-man unit,” manager Pete DeBoer said. “I thought our guys were conscientious erstwhile (Draisaitl and McDavid were) connected the ice.

“It’s ironic that we gave up a fistful of breakaways and two-on-ones and neither of those guys were the guys that stuck them successful the net.”

Pietrangelo had 1 constituent successful the opening 9 games portion trying to transportation the load for an injury-ravaged lineup, and his goals supra replacement successful the league was the worst successful the league, according to Evolving Wild.

Since then, he’s produced 11 points (four goals, 7 assists) successful the past 12 games, and NaturalStatTrick.com shows his expected goals stock of 56.25 percent astatine adjacent spot during that span.

Pietrangelo’s effort against the Oilers was the 2nd clip this play he’s logged much than 29 minutes of crystal time. The different lawsuit was Oct. 22, besides against Edmonton.

He surpassed that people 4 times successful his debut play with the Knights, including a 31:00 showing April 7 astatine St. Louis against his erstwhile club.

Saturday, Pietrangelo hopped implicit the boards for 28 shifts and played 14:03 astatine adjacent spot against Draisaitl. When those 2 were matched together, the Knights held the vantage successful even-strength changeable attemps (23-13), scoring chances (13-6), high-danger chances (6-3) and generated 73.5 of the expected goals share, according to NaturalStatTrick.

Pietrangelo besides saw plentifulness of McDavid, the league’s second-leading scorer down Draisaitl.

In his 8:49 of even-strength play against McDavid, the Knights had 85 percent of the expected goals (1.09-0.19) by NaturalStatTrick’s calculations.

Pietrangelo finished with a team-leading 5 blocked shots, 2 takeaways and 4 shots connected goal.

The lone blemish came connected Edmonton’s 2nd extremity erstwhile Pietrangelo was excessively assertive trying to leap into the discourtesy and got caught up crystal earlier Mark Stone’s turnover, starring to Zach Hyman’s breakaway.

Century mark

The crippled astatine Anaheim connected Wednesday volition beryllium DeBoer’s 100th arsenic manager of the Knights.

He is 67-28-4 since taking implicit connected Jan. 15, 2020, aft Gerard Gallant was fired. The Knights’ points percent of .697 during that clip ranks 3rd successful the NHL down Colorado (.719) and Carolina (.701).

Candles and cake

Defenseman Zach Whitecloud turned 25 connected Sunday. He shares a day with erstwhile Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who celebrated his 37th by starting against the Sharks.

Fleury is 3 victories from becoming the 3rd goalie successful NHL past with 500 vocation wins.

Contact David Schoen astatine dschoen@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ connected Twitter.