The Vegas Golden Knights (32-26-14) returned to the loss column when they were defeated 4-1 by the Winnipeg Jets (30-29-12) Tuesday night at Canada Life Centre.
The Golden Knights trailed 1-0 after the first period but gave up two goals in under two minutes early in the second, which was the difference in the game.
Colton Sissons scored on the power play to make it 3-1 midway through the second period, but Vegas never found its game and was unable to cut the deficit further. Winnipeg scored an empty-net goal with 1:18 remaining to seal the win.
Despite knocking off the red-hot Stars on Sunday, the Golden Knights fell right back into the same self-destructive pattern that has plagued them consistently during their recent struggles. Once again, Vegas found itself trailing by multiple goals and was forced to chase the game.
Vegas walks away with a 1-2-0 record on this three-game road trip and is 5-10-0 since the Olympic break. The Golden Knights have lost four out of their last five games and seven of their last 10.
However, like Saturday’s game against Nashville, the Golden Knights were the better team in the first period but still came away trailing by a goal.
Jets netminder Connor Hellebuyck was the difference early, as he turned aside all 13 of Vegas’ shots in the opening frame. Winnipeg had just five shots, the first of which didn’t come until the second half of the period, but Kyle Connor scored on a one-timer off a great feed from defenseman Josh Morrissey to give the Jets the 1-0 with 2:35 remaining.
The game got away from Vegas in the second period, however, when Winnipeg scored two goals in the span of 1:58.
First, a costly turnover by Shea Theodore led to Alex Iafallo’s 12th of the season at 2:08.
Adin Hill then shut down Cole Koepke’s breakaway to keep the deficit at two, but another mistake burned the Golden Knights shortly thereafter.
This time, Vegas whiffed on a rolling puck in the neutral zone during a line change, resulting in an odd-man rush for Winnipeg. Gabriel Vilardi sent a saucer feed to Cole Perfetti to make it 3-0 just over four minutes into the period.
Despite the fact that Vegas led in shots, the most dangerous chances of the game belonged to Winnipeg, and the Jets buried three of them.
The Golden Knights got on the board with a power-play strike at 10:29. Once again, it was the second unit that cashed in, with Sissons redirecting a centering feed from Rasmus Andersson
The Golden Knights had another chance on the power play but were unable to convert.
In the final minute of the middle frame, Brett Howden dropped the gloves with (and got the best of) Mark Scheifele after a clean hit on Connor, but the Golden Knights trailed 3-1 after two.
Unlike many other times this season, the Golden Knights didn’t deliver a spirited comeback effort in the third period. Instead, they recorded seven shots on goal. Ultimately, the only goal of the frame came courtesy of Scheifele, who scored on the empty net to complete his Gordie Howe hat trick (after assisting on Winnipeg’s first two goals).
In the end, the Golden Knights led 27-21 in shots after holding a 13-5 edge in shots and 5-1 lead in high-danger chances in the first period.
The Golden Knights didn’t capitalize on those chances, and their big-name players didn’t make game-breaking plays, which is something Bruce Cassidy mentioned multiple times in his post-game availability.
“They’ve struggled at 5-on-5 and the power play for a while now, so they just gotta get their confidence back to make plays and finish some plays,” he said. “It’s that simple. [Winnipeg’s] top guys are all over the scoresheet. You can get away with it for a while, but it’s a number of games now, so that hopefully is going to change for us. It’s gonna need to change for us.”
Cassidy felt the first period was relatively evenly matched but was not pleased with the team’s pushback.
“In Nashville, we were dominant in the first period,” he said, explaining why Vegas’ effort against the Jets was not reminiscent of Saturday’s loss to the Predators despite some similarities. “[Tonight], we each had a couple of chances. They buried theirs, made a good play. Again, their top guys found open ice. [Mark Stone] had a real good look, so there were some chances each way. But we didn’t have a dominant stretch tonight.”
Making matters worse, the Golden Knights allowed one goal against to spiral into several.
“We had one of those stretches in the second where 1-0 turned into 3-0,” Cassidy said. “A breakout pass, we turn it over. We pinch, we don’t get the puck, and all of a sudden it’s 3-0. And we’ve seen that a lot this year. Normally, we have a better push, I’ll say that. I don’t think we had a great push to get back into it. Maybe a little bit towards the end of the second, but not enough. Certainly not in the third.”
Sissons also said the Golden Knights fell short.
“Obviously, it wasn’t enough,” he said. “We didn’t find a way to claw ourselves back in the hockey game, unfortunately.”
Hill finished the game with 17 saves on 20 shots for an .850 save percentage. He stopped a key breakaway in the midst of Winnipeg’s scoring burst early in the second period, but he was unable to erase all of Vegas’ costly mistakes.
“Listen, if we’re not scoring, [Hill’s] gonna have to help put out fires for us if we’re gonna win,” Cassidy said. “I’m not putting it on him, but that’s the hand he’s being dealt lately. Hasn’t got a lot of run support.”
But while Hill took the loss and recorded another save percentage below 90, the Golden Knights scored one goal, giving them a total of five in their last five games. Not including the Dallas game, Vegas has scored two goals in its last four games.
When every point is critical and teams are battling to stay alive in the playoff race, scoring goals is of the utmost importance.
“It can’t get to 3-0, one way or another, but [Hill] kept it there and gave us a chance after that,” Cassidy said. “Tonight wasn’t a night about the goaltender. It was about our lack of execution offensively.”
The top power-play unit was firing on all cylinders for most of the season but has completely fallen off a cliff in recent games. Fortunately, the second unit has stepped up, but the Golden Knights need much more from their top players if they want to make the playoffs.
Cassidy tried different line combinations to generate an offensive spark, but Vegas failed to score a 5-on-5 goal. When asked whether he saw anything from mixing things up, Cassidy was blunt.
“No. We got nothing out of it,” he said.
Sissons said he’s hopeful that confidence will help the Golden Knights overcome their offensive woes.
“Things haven’t been easy, guys haven’t been scoring as much as they’d like,” he said. “We just gotta find a way to have some confidence and some swagger coming up in a couple nights, and just know that we’re gonna start scoring again; hopefully it’ll start coming in bunches.”
Andersson expressed frustration over Vegas’ inability to get out of its own way.
“They get one, they get two, they get three,” he said. “I think that’s been kind of our issue. We don’t stop the bleeding soon enough. Feels like almost every time we let the first one in, it’s a 3-0 game where we gotta chase the rest of the game.”
But Andersson seemed to be at a loss for words when asked how to solve this recurring problem.
“When we get scored on first, we gotta find a way to get the next one,” he said. “We had looks; I had looks the last few games. I don’t know how many grade-A’s I’ve had, and I just can’t put it in. It’s a little frustrating, but frustration won’t help at this point. We gotta find a way to come together, and there’s obviously a little bit of positives, but this time of year it’s about wins.”
The Golden Knights need to find a way to pick up some wins, particularly in the final 10 games of the regular season.
After tonight, the Golden Knights are back in third place in the Pacific Division and trail Edmonton by one point. They are four points ahead of the Kings, who have a game in hand, and six ahead of the Kraken, who have two.
The Golden Knights will return home for a four-game homestand starting Thursday night with a critical matchup against the Oilers.
Statistics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.
Photo via the Golden Knights