Vancouver hands Knights second straight home loss

The Vegas Golden Knights took their second straight home loss in as many nights as they were defeated by the Vancouver Canucks 5-1 Saturday, Nov. 26.

“We actually were ready to play tonight,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “The first seven or eight minutes, we were the better team. In hindsight, when you’re playing your fifth game in eight days, if one of those goes in, maybe it gives us some juice and you’re not chasing the game. Their goalie made big saves and then we got ourselves in penalty trouble and didn’t get the job done.”

Vancouver was led by the play of center J.T. Miller, who finished the night with three points (1 goal and 2 assists), Captain Bo Horvat two points (1 goal and 1 assist) and left-wing Andrei Kuzmenko two points (1 goal and 1 assist).

The Canucks are now 8-10-3 with the win.

This is the second time this season that Vegas has lost back-to-back games this season. Both times this has happened were back-to-back home games. The last time Vegas lost back-to-back games this season was Nov. 12 and 15 when they lost to St. Louis and San Jose, 3-2 and 5-2 respectively.

It is also the second time this season that Vegas has given up five or more goals in a game. They are 0-2 when giving up five or more goals.

With the loss, Vegas remains at 33 points in the Pacific Division Standings but now have a record of 16-6-1. The Knights still have a six-point lead over the Seattle Kraken.

Vegas will embark on a four-game road trip starting on Monday that will see them play four games in eight days. Tonight’s game was the fifth game in eight days. At the end of the road trip, the Knights will have played nine games in a 16-day span

Monday’s game will feature the Columbus Blue Jackets inside Nationwide Arena. Puck drop is set for 4 p.m. and can be seen on AT&T Sportsnet in Las Vegas and ESPN+ nationwide.

The Vegas penalty kill gave up three power play goals on five power play chances. Coming into the game, the Knights were 22nd in the league in penalty kill percentage, killing off 76.9 percent of the penalties they faced. After tonight’s game, they are now killing off 73.6 percent of the penalties they face this season.

“I think we came out with a good start and then special teams let us down,” right-wing Reilly Smith said. “When you’re not able to get back any momentum on the penalty kill, it’s tough and we just kept digging ourselves into a bigger hole as the game went on.”

This game was decided by the end of the second period when Vancouver had seized a 5-0 lead through the first 40 minutes of play. This included scoring on three of their first five power play opportunities and having a buzzer-beating goal by Horvat with 0.01 seconds to go in the second period.

Center Jonathan Marchessault did score a goal with 3:17 to go in the game to avoid the shutout. It was an eventful night for Marchessault who had a goal and won a fight against right-wing Conor Garland.