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If you attended the game between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Colorado Avalanche played at T-Mobile Arena on Sunday, April 14, you witnessed a comeback victory by the former.
If you watched the “MultiVersus NHL Face-off” collaboration between TNT Sports, Warner Bros., and the NHL, then you enjoyed Batman igniting the Golden Knights’ 4-3 overtime victory over Superman’s Avs by scoring the first goal of Vegas’ win on Sunday.
The last two Stanley Cup champions faced each other in a game that, virtually, featured many animated versions of iconic Warner Bros. characters such as Batman (Ivan Barbashev) and Superman (Nathan MacKinnon).
Knights center Jack Eichel and winger Keegan Kolesar served as the GMs before the game and drafted characters for Vegas, including Batman with their first pick.
Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar selected the Man of Steel and later Superman, who was the avatar assigned to McKinnon.
Golden Knights & TNT Succeded in First-Ever MultiVersus Game
This game marked the first time TNT Sports combined an NHL game with live animated graphics.
ESPN got the first opportunity with the Big City Greens Classic, which featured characters and environments from the hit Disney show Big City Greens, including one played by the Blackhawks earlier this season.
Dave Lehanski, the NHL’s executive vice president of business development and innovation, explained the concept ahead of the game.
“Everyone’s acknowledged there is this opportunity to create these animated games or create animated content to reach a different audience, a more family audience,” Lehanski said, via Las Vegas Review-Journal. “There’s still the live game, but it creates this fantastical nature to the environment.”
The idea for this broadcast comes from Warner Bros. Games’ upcoming release of “MultiVersus,” a videogame expected for May 28 and available for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
Golden Knights Come Back From 3 Goals Down in Victory
The Knights started the game fairly slow and found themselves down three goals entering the third and final frame.
That’s when things changed and the Knights superheroes activated their powers led by left winger Ivan “Batman” Barbashev.
Barbashev’s goal sparked the comeback with center William Karlsson scoring the next two goals to send the game to overtime. Once there, Nathan “Superman” MacKinnon to stop his nemesis on the day, deadline-acquisition Thomas Hertl, who scored the game-winning goal for Vegas.
“We all know we didn’t play good in the first and second,” Barbashev told reporters after the game on April 14. “We had to talk about it in the locker room. We knew we had it. We went out there and played the right way.”
Hertl tipped in a shot from Eichel in overtime in a non-spectacular fashion. The animated version, however, was a sight to behold with Eichel’sshot sending the Multiversus net of the Avs into oblivion.
With the win, Vegas remains in the Western Conference’s No. 2 wild-card spot. If that holds, they will face the No. 1 seed in the West, the Dallas Stars, unless the Golden Knights move up in the standings.
The Knights (96 points in 80 games) are just 1 point behind the Los Angeles Kings (97 points in 80 games) in the Pacific Division and 3 points behind the Nashville Predators (99 points in 81 games) for the No. 1 wild-card spot.
Vegas’ head coach Bruce Cassidy discussed the Knights’ unrelenting mindset after the game. “I don’t think our guys felt like they were out of it. We just needed something good to happen.”
It’s fair to say the Bat Signal worked.
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