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The Vegas Golden Knights had their four-game winning streak snapped after finding themselves trailing early and failing to come back en route to a blowout loss.
The Golden Knights lost to the Edmonton Oilers, 6-3, on Saturday, Dec. 14, at Rogers Place.
“I think we competed until the end,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We tried to play the right way and stay on our game.”
With the loss, Vegas’ record dropped to 19-8-3 for 41 points and 8-5-3 when playing on the road this season.
Saturday’s game was the third of four meetings between these two teams this season. The Knights won the first two matchups. Their final scheduled game against each other this season will be on April 1, at the T-Mobile Arena.
Despite the loss, the VGK is still in first place in the Pacific Division with a two-point lead over second-place Los Angeles Kings.
Saturday’s game was the second of a three-game road trip for the Golden Knights. It also was the first half of another back-to-back.
Vegas will be right back in action tomorrow when they play against the Minnesota Wild on Sunday, Dec. 15. Puck drop is scheduled for 3 p.m. from the Xcel Energy Center.
“I think [Minnesota] is a good defensive team,” Cassidy said. “If you can be strong on pucks down low, get to the interior ice, you’re going to have to do that. We might run into another hot goalie, we did in Winnipeg the other night and finally broke through at the end.
”Tonight we got some goals, we just didn’t keep it out of our net well enough in the second period. So if we can do that tomorrow with the same offensive energy, we should be okay.”
For the second straight game, the Knights found themselves starting from behind early as it went into the first intermission trailing by one. Then the Oilers offense exploded for four more goals in the second period to take a commanding 5-0 lead.
Unlike their most recent game, Vegas wasn’t going to be able to pull off another comeback victory after they dug themselves too deep of a hole. But they didn’t go down without a fight and managed to cut the deficit.
The Golden Knights finally got on the board when right-wing Victor Olofsson scored a goal off assists from center Tomas Hertl and defenseman Noah Hanifin.
With the goal, Olofsson increased his season total to five goals. As for Hertl, it was his 13th assist of the season.
Then Vegas quickly scored another goal when center Ivan Barbashev found the back of the net with help from Hanifin and fellow center Jack Eichel, increasing his season total to 31 assists while still leading the team in points with 40 on the season.
“We did pretty good in the first period,” Barbashev said. “I think we were pushing them in the first period, but then our game slipped a little bit. We started to turn the puck over between the blue lines and they all ended up in our net.”
It was Barbashev’s 15th goal of the season.
“It’s like a little wake-up call,” he said. “We’ve just got to get back to our normal game, regroup on the flight to Minnesota, and just try to go out there and play better.”
Hanifin recorded a multi-point game with his two assists, adding to his season total of 11 assists.
“That’s something that we’ve had all year,” he said. “The resiliency not to give up no matter the score.”
Then right in the beginning of the third period, center Brett Howden lit the lamp on an unassisted goal. Howden’s goal was his 11th of the season.
“We found a way to claw back and give ourselves a chance in the third,” Hanifin said. “Obviously we got that shorthanded goal and it gave us life.”
After playing consistently good in his last few games, 2023 Stanley Cup hero Adin Hill had a rough day in the office starting at goalie for VGK.
“There were a lot of details in our d-zone,” Barbashev said. “We’ve been on a really good stretch defensively in the past five or six games, where we’ve done a really good job. But today, it just wasn’t there. Just little details that got away, and that’s how they scored all their goals basically.”
By the final buzzer, Hill finished with 28 saves on 34 shots for a .824 save percentage. His record is now 13-5-2 on the season.
To make matters worse, the Golden Knights had to stick with Hill for the entire game because they have a back-to-back and will need to start backup Ilya Samsonov between the pipes in tomorrow’s game against the Wild.
“It’s a good challenge for us,” Hanifin said. “I think we’re confident in where our game is at and it should be a good game. We’ve been playing a lot of good hockey clubs lately and I think that’s good for us. We just got to turn the page. We’ve been playing [well]. We just have to prepare for tomorrow and go back home with a good road trip.”
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