The Vegas Golden Knights earned a point but fell short in a 2-1 overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues Monday night at T-Mobile Arena.
The loss snapped their two-game winning streak but extended their point streak to five games (2-0-3).
Vegas had a seemingly endless stream of prime scoring chances, but the man of the hour was Blues netminder Jordan Binnington, who was absolutely sensational.
He made incredible save after incredible save, shutting down at least three 2-on-1 opportunities and two breakaways in the first period alone.
But despite dominating the open frame, the Golden Knights found themselves trailing 1-0 after 20 minutes. A Colton Parayko point shot hit Alexey Toropchenko on its way into the net, beating a screened Logan Thompson with just 21 seconds left in the first.
In a somewhat disjointed second period, it was more of the same from Binnington, who continued to put on a show.
The Golden Knights got a power play early in the third period but failed to generate much of anything.
Meanwhile, Binnington continued to make big saves.
Vegas got another power play later in the frame; this time, the Golden Knights capitalized.
It was none other than Jack Eichel who knotted things up at 1-1 with just over seven minutes remaining in regulation. William Karlsson won a key draw, Jonathan Marchessault retrieved the puck and Eichel fired from downtown, beating Binnington through traffic.
Right after the goal, Thompson made a huge save on Kevin Hayes in front to keep things tied. He finished the game with 25 saves on 27 shots for a .926 save percentage.
But while Eichel’s 11th of the season got Vegas a point, the Golden Knights were unable to come away with the second one.
In the first minute of extra time, the Golden Knights left the red-hot Pavel Buchnevich wide open in front of the net; Buchnevich called game, collecting a pass from Robert Thomas and scoring on the first shot of overtime.
The Golden Knights played well enough to win, but Binnington was a brick wall for the Blues.
The Blues came into the game 11-0-0 when scoring first; they leave 12-0-0. St. Louis got off to another very slow start and could have been in a multi-goal hole, but Binnington had other ideas.
In the end, the Golden Knights were able to collect another point with a late third-period equalizer.
“Big point,” Brayden McNabb said. “We’ll take it and move on.”
Binnington finished the game with 33 saves on 34 shots for a .971 save percentage.
He finished 16-for-16 on high-danger chances, 15 of which came at 5-on-5. Perhaps most impressively, he saved a staggering 4.18 goals above expected. In one game.
The Golden Knights generated 20 high-danger chances at 5-on-5 compared to the Blues’ six. Vegas had a whopping 4.58 expected goals at 5-on-5 but scored zero.
“We’ve seen a bit of this movie the last month, with some goaltenders playing really well against us, where we didn’t get points,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “So at least we got a point in this one. You never are going to be satisfied with losing, but … I like the fact that we were able to push through and come back and get a point.”
Once again, it was Eichel who came up with the big play in another strong performance; he now has eight points in his last four games.
“I liked a lot of our game,” Eichel said. “Give their goalie credit. He’s an elite goaltender; he made a lot of big stops on us, and we couldn’t find a way to get another one by him.”
Eichel wasn’t alone in crediting Binnington.
“Good for Binnington,” Cassidy said. “He played well. I think he’s the biggest reason they got two and we only got one.”
Cassidy liked Vegas’ game despite the result.
“Thought we had a lot of good looks, some Grade-A’s that [Binnington] made stops on,” Cassidy said. “Thought we defended pretty well, didn’t give up a lot. … All in all, pretty good game; [we played] well enough to win, for sure.”
McNabb also thought the team defended well, especially on the rush.
“They’re a really good rush team,” he said. “For the most part, we took it away. They’re aggressive, they have a D in all the time, so we did a good job staying between the dots when we had to and shutting down rushes when we had to.”
The Golden Knights also used that rush defense to create offense. A lot of it.
That’s something the Golden Knights will look to replicate when these teams finish up the home-and-home Wednesday night at Enterprise Center.
The Golden Knights are now 16-5-5 on the year and 9-2-2 on home ice.
Statistics courtesy of NHL.com, Natural Stat Trick, MoneyPuck
(Photo: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports)