It’s been a running theme in this series, how the Vegas Golden Knights play the San Jose Sharks’ defensemen high. Naturally, Vegas is trying to take away San Jose’s go-to weapons, Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson, in their point shot-based offense.
As I’ve written before, the Sharks rely more on their defensemen to shoot than any other team in the league, save the New York Islanders. In the regular season, San Jose defensemen were responsible for 39.6 percent of the team’s shot attempts at 5-on-5.
Here’s a Game 1 example of how the Knights are playing Burns:
Smith was basically parked in front of Burns, daring #SJSharks to pass it back to the point pic.