Golden Knights lose in overtime to LA Kings
A frustrated Marc-Andre Fleury smashed his stick on the post and angrily skated off the T-Mobile Arena ice after surrendering an overtime goal to Tyler Toffoli on a breakaway.
One of his teammates was the first to take blame for the Golden Knights’ 4-3 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday night.
Defenseman Nate Schmidt’s decision to head toward the bench for a substitute allowed Toffoli to take a long pass from Oscar Fantenberg just before crossing the blue line, triggering the decisive breakaway.
Shea Theodore hopped over the boards in place of Schmidt and gave chase, but never got close.
“It was a stupid change,” a dejected Schmidt said as he sat in front of his stall. “Stupid of me. It was dumb. I feel bad for (Fleury) and the guys.”
Toffoli took full advantage with his first goal since Nov. 16, beating Fleury to the glove side to hand the Knights their second overtime loss at home in as many nights.
“I have no clue what (Schmidt) was doing,” Toffoli said. “But you know what? I’m not mad.
“We got a break and finished it.”
It was the third time the Knights had allowed an overtime goal in their last six outings, a major reason Fleury was so upset.
“I want to make a difference,” he said. “I want to give our team a chance to win these games. I haven’t and it’s been pissing me off.
“That last one, one-on-one with me, I should have made a save and gave us a chance to stay in the game. It’s two in a row now with both games being overtime losses. I’ve got to be better.”
The Knights (20-15-4) salvaged at least one point by forcing overtime when Ryan Reaves got a stick on Schmidt’s shot during a power play and deflected it past Calvin Petersen at 6:55 of the third period.
The Knights earlier held leads of 1-0 and 2-1, but couldn’t hang on. They are now 0-1-1 against the Kings (14-20-3), who reside in the cellar of the Pacific Division standings. The teams will meet again in Los Angeles on Saturday and at T-Mobile Arena on Jan. 1.
Sunday’s loss also dropped the Knights to 3-3 in overtime games this season (1-3 in the last four). They have also split a pair of shootouts.
“I think a lot of it is just mental,” forward Reilly Smith said of the recent overtime struggles. “It’s a pretty simple game when its 3-on-3, a lot of man-on-man and just making sure you stay in front of your guy. It seems like we have been slipping assignments a little bit and they have cost us. Those are big points to lose, especially before Christmas. We wanted to win these last two and have a good end before this little break.”
The Knights will step away from the ice to celebrate the holidays as they won’t practice at all the next three days.
Schmidt will likely be replaying the final sequence in his mind quite a few times, though coach Gerard Gallant was quick to defend what he means to the team.
“Nate’s our best defenseman,” Gallant said. “He doesn’t like to see the puck in the back of the net. When you make a line change, sometimes a bad line change that happens. He’s been our best defensemen the last year and a half and we’ll move on. It’s too bad it happened like that because we were dominating the first minute of overtime, but Nate’s a great kid and that’s what he’s going to do. He’s going to say it’s his fault whether it is or not.
“He owned up to it and that’s fine, but he isn’t the reason we lost the game.”
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-277-8028. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.