Knights ‘keeping ourselves in games’ despite recent skid
It’s important to remember that a season is 82 games for a reason.
The Golden Knights are going to go through slumps. There will be bumps in the road. Nitpicking a string of losses after they won 17 of their previous 21 games is finding the needle in the proverbial haystack.
But even the Knights will say after losses that they’re in the business of winning games. Even that stretch of nearly two months of winning won’t hide the fact that they lost for the third time in four games Tuesday against the Nashville Predators.
“I’ve never seen us that listless, getting knocked off pucks and losing battles,” coach Bruce Cassidy said.
The Knights (29-12-3) have lost only seven times since Nov. 21. There haven’t been many bad losses in that stretch when they’ve been outplayed.
Even the consecutive home losses to the New York Islanders on Thursday and New York Rangers on Saturday weren’t indicative of bad play, though the Knights scored one combined goal in those games.
Cassidy felt the Knights didn’t do well enough in their one-on-one matchups against a good defensive team in the Islanders, nor did they do well enough getting to the net.
Natural Stat Trick had the Knights winning the expected goals battle 2.19-1.44 at five-on-five. The Knights didn’t take advantage of their minimal chances.
Against the Rangers, the Knights did a better job at five-on-five in Cassidy’s eyes, but they didn’t get the bounces compared to New York, which resulted in a 2-1 loss.
“We didn’t execute the chances we had,” captain Mark Stone said Saturday. “We had some good looks that just bounced from the sticks, and we couldn’t find one there at the end.”
Hat trick wasted
Tuesday was their worst loss out of the bunch.
The Knights were held to one shot on goal in the first period and three through the first 29:12. It could’ve been uglier if not for right wing Pavel Dorofeyev’s hat trick that nearly brought the Knights back from a four-goal deficit, only to lose 5-3.
Something the Knights have been able to hang their hat on this season is their ability to rebound after losses — they are 9-4-1 now.
They’ll have a chance to improve on that record Friday at the Carolina Hurricanes (26-16-3), who will be on the second night of a back-to-back after a 4-2 loss at Buffalo on Wednesday.
Cassidy said the Knights’ ability to put losses behind them quickly is a combination of having a veteran team that has been built on a winning culture, and the expectation within the room.
Veterans have standards
“We don’t like it when we lose,” Cassidy said Jan. 2, two days after losing 3-2 to the Montreal Canadiens. “Usually, there’s stuff we can revisit and we can improve on. We have veteran guys, but they’re veteran guys that have standards that they want to get to every night.
“When you do lose, there are games you walk away and say, ‘Hey, we outplayed the other team by a lot, and it didn’t go our way.’ There’s games you feel you’re OK in certain areas, but not quite good enough, and there are others where you leave points on the table.”
The Knights found slight solace in finding a way to make it a one-goal game late in the third period Tuesday after things went haywire in the first half of the game.
It’s not a formula worth repeating. They at least have an understanding of that.
“We’re keeping ourselves in games,” Stone said. “That’s what good hockey teams do.”
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.