The Vegas Golden Knights, wearing their Winter Classic uniforms, lost by a score of 3-1 on Saturday, and once again were unable to dig out of a hole created by surrendering a quick pair of back-to-back goals.
Blake Coleman scored at 11:06 of the 1st period, and Nazem Kadri scored 1:58 later to give the Flames a 2-0 lead. Mikael Backlund scored at 17:09 in the 2nd period to make it 3-0, and Chandler Stephenson scored the lone goal for Vegas at 8:54 in the 3rd.
Jack Eichel missed the game, and according to Bruce Cassidy he will “miss some time,” and that isn’t great news for a Golden Knights team that has spent the season without a number of key players so far this season. Eichel has been the team’s best player, and he’s been a motor for the offense upfront.
The early hole hurt the Golden Knights, and Vegas once again failed to get things done on the power play, and they now rank 18th in the league with a conversion rate of 20.9%. The lack of a timely goal hurt on Saturday, and there’s been a few games of late where special teams have been a difference maker in a negative way. When looking at things under the hood, the Golden Knights seemingly deserved a better fate, and a power play goal or two could have swung things in their favor.
The Golden Knights spent the majority of the game chasing, and when they did have opportunities to score they were stymied by Jacob Markstrom who made 31 saves on 32 shots. He stole the game for the Flames, and deserves a lot of credit for his performance from start to finish.
Vegas is now 3-7-0 over their last 10 games played, and luckily enough for them the 3rd place Los Angeles Kings are 2-4-4 in their last 10 too. This has allowed Vegas to tread water in 2nd place, although the Kings do have 4 games in hand and trail the team by 5 points.
Vegas will return to action on Monday against the Nashville Predators, and it will be the 1st meeting for the two teams this season.