The Vegas Golden Knights kicked off their East coast road trip with a 6-5 overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils. It was a very weird and wide open game in which the team interestingly scored first! Pavel Dorofeyev scored 6:12 into the game to make it 1-0, and the Golden Knights proceeded to concede 3 consecutive goals to Nico Hischier (15:21 of 1st), Curtis Lazar (19:38 of 1st), and Tyler Toffoli (1:37 of 2nd).
Vegas entered the game winners of 3 in a row, and 4 of the last 5, and it very much looked like things were going off the rails… until it wasn’t. The team was down 3-1 for the beginning of the 2nd period, and then the flood gates opened up. Jonathan Marchessault scored to make it 3-2, and found the back of the net just under 3 minutes later to make it 3-3. Chandler Stephenson added a goal of his own 48 seconds later to make it 4-3, and Nicolas Roy added another one for good measure with 52 seconds left in the period. Unfortunately, Toffoli responded for New Jersey 38 seconds after that, and the score sat at 5-4 heading into the final 20 minutes of play.
The 3rd period featured one goal, and Lazar found the back of the net for the 2nd time in the game near the halfway point of the period to make it 5-5, and things remained that way the remainder of the period to send both teams to overtime. In overtime Toffoli completed the New Jersey comeback with a hat trick goal assisted by Luke Hughes, and picked up the extra point in the process.
As you can see below, the expected score of this game and the actual score was vastly different, and that speaks to defensive breakdowns and poor goaltending. Vegas’ push in the 2nd could have carried the rest of the way, but a late goal by the Devils put them back on the heels, and they weren’t able to hold on the rest of the way.
Bruce Cassidy was very disappointed in his post game presser, and it pretty much sums up what went wrong in a game the team easily could have won after digging itself out of an early hole.
The Golden Knights don’t have long to rebound from this loss, and they will get back on the proverbial horse when they take on the New York Islanders tonight at UBS Arena.