Hannah Bellemare remembers fans approaching her husband and thanking him, telling him they were scared to go into public but Golden Knights games made them comfortable again. In the wake of the tragedy, Las Vegas residents rallied around the brand-new Golden Knights, who went on a storybook run and reached the Stanley Cup Final. A banner recognizing each of the victims still hangs from the rafters at T-Mobile Arena. The Golden Knights honored the victims at their home opener, projecting their names on the ice, and dedicated the game, a 5-2 win against Arizona, to the city of Las Vegas. The inaugural team played its first game less than two weeks after a mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip killed 60 people and left hundreds more injured at a country music festival. “And those players will be remembered forever.” “He was one of the first players here,” said Dan Tafoya, Bellemare’s neighbor in Las Vegas. He and Hannah still have a house in Las Vegas and visit in the offseason, and the city’s feelings of appreciation haven’t faded just because he’s moved onto a rival club. He spent only two years playing for Vegas, but his personality, playing style and community involvement made him a fan favorite. “He wanted to do something more immersive.”īellemare, now on the Colorado Avalanche and playing against Vegas in the second round of the playoffs, consistently showed this spirit throughout his time with the Golden Knights, who selected him in the 2017 expansion draft. Follow our Tampa Bay Times sports team on Twitter and Facebook.“He decided that he wanted to not just talk to people,” Bellemare’s wife, Hannah, said recently. Never miss out on the latest with the Bucs, Rays, Lightning, Florida college sports and more. Encina that brings you closer to the ice. Sign up for Lightning Strikes, a weekly newsletter from Bolts beat writer Eduardo A. It’s a high-risk play, but kind of my role is to be a little bit defensive and this is the kind of play that I have to be confident doing at times to be good for this team.” “The coaches trust us to put us in there (late in the game). So I was like, if I put as much of my body in front of it it shouldn’t go through, and lucky enough he went right in my mitt. And I saw that (Bjorkstrand) didn’t have full control. “I felt like I was kind of in a really awkward position. Had Bellemare not made the play, Bjorkstrand was one of three Kraken skaters heading the other way for an odd-man rush and a likely Grade-A scoring chance.Īsked whether the play was more luck than skill, Bellemare called it “a little bit of both.” “Oof, I got lucky,” Bellemare said afterward. Sometimes when it’s really close, it’s a little bit tougher.Ī pass from Victor Hedman to Bellemare at the point landed on Kraken forward Oliver Bjorkstrand’s stick, but Bellemare recovered, sealing off the blue line by going down to one knee and stopping Bjorkstrand’s pass with his left glove to keep it in the offensive zone. “And that shot was kind of in a perfect range. “My first thought process is, like, make sure that my stick is in play, make sure it’s somewhere there so that I can have the shortest time going down or up in case I can tip it in if the shot is close enough,” Bellemare said. Bellemare had his back to the puck, so Grubauer couldn’t see when Bellemare reached out his blade to redirect the puck for his second goal of the season. He set a screen, as did Vladislav Namestnikov in the slot, creating a lane for Cole to shoot through. When you have some depth, it helps you win some hockey games, and in a game like (Monday’s), when (Nikita Kucherov) or (Steven Stamkos) or (Brayden Point) isn’t getting one, you need somebody like ‘Belly’ to get it for you, and it turns out to be a big one for us.”Īfter Corey Perry kept possession of the puck in the offensive zone and fed Cole at the left point, Bellemare went to the top of the crease. “And that’s the difference with some teams. “It’s depth,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. But it wasn’t until Bellemare deflected an Ian Cole shot past goaltender Philipp Grubauer with 1:17 left in the period that the Lightning were rewarded with a goal, the game’s only tally in the first two periods. In a first period that saw the Lightning make 25 shot attempts (15 on goal), they were sustaining zone time and pressuring the net.
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