Knights, in search of first road win, set to face McDavid-less Oilers
The Golden Knights will have plenty of opportunities to pick up their first road win of the season this month.
The Knights will play nine of their next 11 games away from home, starting with Wednesday’s matchup with the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place.
“We can kind of get into a groove on the road here,” defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said.
The Knights’ November won’t define their season. But their road woes are one of the only knocks against them at this point.
The Knights (8-3-1) have done everything right except for win away from T-Mobile Arena.
They won their eighth straight home game Saturday with a 4-3 overtime win against the Utah Hockey Club. The Knights have scored at least three goals in each of those wins. Their offensive success at home is why they’re scoring 4.5 goals per game so far this season, the second-most in the NHL.
It’s a completely different script on the road.
The Knights have been outscored 18-11 in their four road losses. Their most recent setback was a 6-3 defeat to the Los Angeles Kings at Crypto.com Arena on Oct. 30.
“We know how we play at home with these starts. We just have to put in the work on the road,” center Tomas Hertl said.
The Knights haven’t been dominated on the road. They’ve just unraveled at inopportune times.
Cassidy liked the Knights’ first 10 minutes in Los Angeles, but the game flipped when the Kings scored twice in a 42-second span in the first period. The Kings added two more goals in a 44-second span in the second period.
The Knights have liked their road game overall. They just can’t have those kind of costly lapses.
The team has an opportunity to tighten things up Wednesday against the Oilers (6-6-1), the defending Western Conference champion.
Edmonton will be without captain Connor McDavid, who suffered an ankle injury Oct. 28 against the Columbus Blue Jackets and hasn’t played since.
The Oilers’ offense remains dangerous even with the three-time Hart Trophy winner for NHL MVP out. Edmonton beat the Nashville Predators 5-1 on Thursday in its first game without McDavid, then defeated the Calgary Flames 4-2 on Sunday.
The Oilers were shut out in their most recent game, a 3-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Monday.
McDavid’s running mate, center Leon Draisaitl, remains as potent as ever. Draisaitl leads the Oilers with 16 points in 13 games.
“You can’t assume because a guy’s out that, ‘OK, it’s going to be easy.’ It doesn’t work that way,” Cassidy said. “I don’t think it changes our approach.”
Goaltender Ilya Samsonov will not travel with the Knights on the road. He’s still nursing soreness that kept him from dressing Sunday. Akira Schmid will remain goaltender Adin Hill’s backup.
Hill has won his last three starts, but he has still allowed at least three goals in six of his seven appearances. He has an opportunity to turn things around in this upcoming stretch of road games. The Knights will be looking to turn around their game away from home as well.
“It’s just responsibility up and down the lineup to know who you’re up against,” Pietrangelo said. “When we’re going at home, we carry that momentum. For us, we’ve got to start recognizing when it’s time to dumb things down and take that momentum away from the home teams.”
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
