Marc-Andre Fleury struggles again in Golden Knights’ loss

Marc-Andre Fleury has carried the Golden Knights most of the season.

The goalie’s inspired play is the main reason the team has been in first place in the West Division for most of the season. Still, he’ll be happy to see the calendar flip to April.

March was the worst month of Fleury’s season. He ended it by allowing four goals in Wednesday’s 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Kings at T-Mobile Arena, the sixth time he has given up at least that many in his past 13 games.

“It’s not all on him,” coach Pete DeBoer said. “He’s had a lack of support in a couple of those instances from our group.”

Fleury started the season on a tear. He allowed four goals once in his first 12 starts. He allowed one goal or fewer six times.

He was an acrobatic, unstoppable brick wall. He and Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy appeared to be running neck-and-neck in the Vezina Trophy race.

But things became more volatile in March. Fleury allowed one goal or fewer in five of his 13 starts, but opponents started posting larger numbers more often.

Fleury was 8-5 with a .909 save percentage and 2.64 goals-against average for the month. In January and February, he was 9-3 with a .941 save percentage and 1.59 goals-against average.

He didn’t help his cause at times Wednesday. The Kings’ third goal happened when left wing Andreas Athanasiou threw the puck from the bottom of the left circle at Fleury’s skates. The goaltender lost track of where the puck was, and center Jaret Anderson-Dolan had a tap-in goal.

The Kings’ next goal also came rather easily. Left wing Alex Iafallo tipped the puck at the blue line into the offensive zone and chased after it. Fleury looked as if he wanted to skate out of his crease and knock it away, but the puck took a shorter-than-expected bounce.

That allowed Iafallo to grab the puck first and catch Fleury flat-footed. He lunged with his stick to try to poke the puck away, but Iafallo calmly skated to the side and scored on the empty net.

That kind of play didn’t happen in the first two months for Fleury.

“The one bounces and stops dead when (Fleury’s) coming out to play it,” DeBoer said. “They get a free one there.”

Here are three more takeaways from the loss:

1. Stephenson’s penalty

Knights center Chandler Stephenson exited the game with 1:46 remaining in the second period after the first major penalty and game misconduct of his career.

Stephenson was assessed 15 penalty minutes for elbowing Kings defenseman Tobias Bjornfot in the corner of the offensive zone. He had only 32 penalty minutes in his first 240 NHL games.

“It looked like the right call,” DeBoer said. “I wasn’t going to argue with their decision at ice level. Where that goes from here, that’s out of my hands.”

The NHL’s department of player safety might look at the hit for a possible fine or suspension. If Stephenson misses games, center Cody Glass’ stay in the American Hockey League might be short. Glass had a goal and an assist in the Silver Knights 3-1 win over Tucson on Wednesday.

2. Pietrangelo returns

Knights defenseman Alex Pietrangelo made his presence known in his first game since March 6.

He had a team-high seven shots on goal and had the second-most ice time (22:25) behind defenseman Alec Martinez (22:40). Pietrangelo was also on the ice for two of Los Angeles’ goals and took a late penalty that gave the Kings a five-on-three power play for 40 seconds.

“You can practice all you want, but you have to get up to game speed,” Pietrangelo said. “It’s important as a player to be patient and understand it’s going to take more than probably a couple of shifts puckwise to get things going. I’ve been around long enough to kind of understand those kinds of things will take more than a few shifts to get back.”

3. Hague’s penalty problems

Staying out of the box has been an issue for Knights defenseman Nic Hague lately.

The 22-year-old was called for two minor penalties Wednesday, giving him five in the past three games. It hadn’t been an issue for Hague, who took three minor penalties in his first 28 games.

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.