The Vegas Golden Knights (24-12-12) saw their seven-game winning streak and eight-game point streak come to an end in a 2-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers (23-17-8) Monday night at T-Mobile Arena.
Two Vegas turnovers led to two breakaway goals by Travis Konecny, and the Golden Knights went 1-for-7 on the power play in the loss.
Vegas’ first game after Sunday’s acquisition of defenseman Rasmus Andersson in exchange for a package including Zach Whitecloud was the club’s 12th regulation defeat of the season. Andersson was not in the lineup, however, due to visa issues.
Mark Stone extended his career-best point streak to 12 games with the secondary assist on Tomas Hertl’s power-play goal at the end of the second period. Stone has 10 goals and 19 points in his last 12 games and has recorded at least a point in 29 of 32 games this season.
However, it wasn’t enough to help the Golden Knights come out on top.
The Golden Knights controlled play in the first few minutes of the game, but the Flyers struck first.
A soft handoff by Hertl at the offensive blue line was picked off by Konecny, who beat Adin Hill on a breakaway at 3:46 to give Philadelphia the early 1-0 lead.
It was the only goal in the opening 20 minutes, a period in which Vegas led 11-4 in shots, 23-9 in shot attempts and 13-5 in scoring chances but trailed 1-0.
It took a while for the Golden Knights to get things going in the second period, as their timing seemed a bit out of sync.
The Flyers eventually started to put some pressure on Vegas late in the period but then took a terrible tripping penalty 200 feet away from their net, setting up Vegas’ fourth man-advantage of the night.
The Golden Knights’ fourth-ranked power play cashed in during the final minute of the period.
Vegas gained entry, and Stone threw the puck across the zone to open things up for the top unit. Hertl then scored on a gorgeous redirect off a feed from Jack Eichel to even things up at 1-1. Hertl’s 20th goal and 10th power-play goal of the year came at 19:28 of the middle frame.
The Golden Knights looked to take a lead when they got power play No. 5 just over six minutes into the third period. However, another turnover at the offensive blue line sent Konecny on a shorthanded breakaway. Once again, Konecny made no mistake, giving the Flyers the 2-1 lead at 7:22.
The Golden Knights got another power play — their sixth of the night — with 6:31 to go. They almost connected on another redirect in front, but Braeden Bowman’s deflection went just wide of the open cage.
Vegas pulled Hill with 1:49 remaining, and an attempted clear by Owen Tippett went over the glass, giving Vegas a 6-on-4 for the final 1:33 of regulation. It was the Golden Knights’ seventh power play of the contest.
Vegas called timeout with 22 seconds left, and it all came down to a final scramble in front. Flyers netminder Sam Ersson was down, Travis Sanheim was facing the net and the puck was loose, but the Golden Knights were unable to get the job done, falling 2-1.
The Golden Knights lost this game due to a lack of execution.
The Golden Knights defended well, yielding just 17 shots on goal. But two awful turnovers proved to be the difference in the game.
That being said, this was still a winnable game.
The Golden Knights could have overcome those two mistakes. They had seven power plays but registered just eight total shots and only scored once.
“I think early on we were casual, didn’t bear down,” Bruce Cassidy said about the power play. “As it wore on, I thought [the Flyers] were doing a good job taking away some of the things we wanted to do. So we’re imploring the group to maybe get it to the net and crowd the net a little bit more. We end up scoring a goal going to the net. … I thought in the third period we’d be able to do a little more of that, but we didn’t. [Philadelphia] blocked a few, and we didn’t get enough to the blue paint.”
Ultimately, the Golden Knights weren’t as desperate as a Flyers team looking to snap a six-game losing streak, and it cost them.
The two Flyers’ goals were the result of blatant turnovers by Vegas, and Konecny beat Hill cleanly on both breakaways. Hill could have bailed out Hertl or Eichel with a save, or the Golden Knights could have minimized those mistakes on the power play. Neither happened.
“Both goals, they’re basically gifts when you look at them,” Cassidy said. “Otherwise, I think our willingness to defend was pretty good. We didn’t open the floodgates, we tried to take care of the front of our net, all of those things. But we mismanaged a couple pucks that were breakways.
“At the end of the night, they both went in. So if you’re not scoring, you’re going to need a save on one of them. … But we had plenty of opportunities to make up for those, and we didn’t on the power play. Those are your top guys; they just had an off night.”
Ersson played well enough, facing 17 high-danger chances and yielding just one goal on 25 shots. However, the Golden Knights didn’t play with enough urgency, particularly in the third period, where they seemed to take a step back.
It’s not as though the Golden Knights can’t score at 5-on-5, as they proved against Nashville. But they didn’t have to with a season-high seven power plays. They looked disjointed, and they didn’t play with the same swagger that helped them win seven in a row.
Plus, the fourth line arguably was the club’s best throughout the game, even if it didn’t produce. The trio of Cole Reinhardt, Alexander Holtz and former Flyer Tanner Laczynski made a difference, drawing a late penalty and finishing the game with a 7-2 edge in Corsi and an 84.22 percent expected goal share in 6:40. Perhaps that’s due to playing a simpler north-south game.
Cassidy said the Golden Knights could have benefited from a similar approach.
“We need a little more of that mindset: get it inside, try to win the wars around the front of the net,” he said. “We weren’t able to do that but we didn’t execute well enough anyway. But when you’re not executing, then that’s a way of simplifying by just saying find an open lane, create an open lane, shoot it. But we were out of sync in terms of that mindset tonight.”
The Golden Knights will look to start a new streak when they hit the road for a back-to-back set against Atlantic Division teams starting Thursday in Boston. Notably, Friday’s game against the Maple Leafs will mark Mitch Marner’s return to Toronto.
Statistics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.
Photo via Golden Knights