Utah offense too much for VGK as they suffer shutout loss at home

The Vegas Golden Knights didn’t come out with enough energy and struggled to wake up in their shutout loss to the Utah Hockey Club.

Vegas was defeated by Utah, 6-0, Saturday, Nov. 30, at the T-Mobile Arena.

“We didn’t execute well enough early on,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We mismanaged the puck on the first three goals. We ended up chasing the game… We put ourselves in a bad spot.”

The team’s record dropped to 15-7-3 and 9-3-0 while playing at home on the season.

Despite the loss, Vegas still remains two points ahead of the Los Angeles Kings for first place in the Pacific Division.

Saturday night’s game was the third and final meeting in the regular season between these two teams. The Knights won the first matchup, 4-3, in overtime at home Nov. 2 and also won their most recent meeting, 4-2, on the road Nov. 15.

VGK was also playing the backend of a back-to-back after beating the Winnipeg Jets the previous night, 4-3.

Saturday’s game also marked the second of a three-game homestand.

The Golden Knights will next play against the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday, Dec. 3. Puck drop is scheduled for 7 p.m. at The Fortress.

“Obviously that one stings a bit, that’s not the way you want to play at home,” forward Tanner Pearson said. “We got a day off tomorrow and we’ll regroup Monday and get back to work.”

After prevailing with an epic win last night in their first game back home from a five-game road trip, Vegas finally looked like the time on the road caught up to them on Saturday.

“Tonight got away from us,” Pearson said. “It was one of those ones that’s not really going your way. You don’t want to throw it out, but at the same time, you want to move past it.”

It was the Knights’ second time being shutout this season. The other time was just 10 days ago on the road against the Toronto Maple Leafs, in a 3-0 final.

“You’ve got to be ready to play,” Pearson said. “If you’re not ready to play, every team in this league can kick you in the teeth, and that was an example of that tonight.”

VGK initially started the game with some close chances of scoring, but they then fell behind later in the first period.

“I actually thought our legs weren’t bad early on,” Cassidy said. “We mismanaged the puck on the first goal.”

After Utah’s first goal, they just never looked back and it looked like the Golden Knights just lost any energy and momentum that they had going into the game. Before they knew it, they were going into the first intermission down 4-0.

“We didn’t have the energy to push back from 4-0, but I thought we had the energy at the puck drop,” Cassidy said. “Good on them for capitalizing, but we just have to do better in those situations.”

To get the second period started, defenseman Nicolas Hague tried to breathe some life into the team and home crowd by getting into a fight with Utah forward Lawson Crouse.

Unfortunately for Hague, his fight was all-for-not as Utah continued to build on its lead over Vegas. 

Going into the second intermission, the Knights were trailing 6-0, and most of the 17,666 people in the audience headed for the exits early.

“It was one of those nights,” Cassidy said. “Offensively on attacks, we were losing edges. It just seemed like that night where it was going to be a tough one.”

The VGK put up a valiant effort to try to get on the board and avoid being shutout, but they weren’t able to and skated off the ice in disappointment.

“At the end of the day, it was an opportunity lost,” Cassidy said. They started on time and we helped them a lot […] Tonight I thought we helped them be very good.”

Since the Golden Knights were on the back end of a back-to-back, first-year Vegas player Ilya Samsonov got the start at goalie.

Saying it was a rough night at the office for Samsonov would be an understatement. He finished the game with 22 saves on 28 shots on goal for a .786 save percentage and dropped his record to 5-3-1 on the season.

One of the key factors that continues to be an issue lately for Vegas is their struggle to score on the power play. They went 0-for-4, while Utah went 1-for-3.

Another key mishap was committing 23 giveaways to Utah’s 16.

Besides those factors, the Knights had more shots on goal, hits, and faceoffs won than Utah; but the score ultimately shows their lack of capitalizing on key opportunities.