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Short-handed Golden Knights see home winning streak end

Updated March 31, 2021 - 10:31 pm

The Golden Knights were supposed to be at full strength Wednesday for the first time in more than two months.

By the end of the night, they were without two forwards.

Despite welcoming back defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, the Knights were forced to play short-handed and lost 4-2 to the Los Angeles Kings in front of an announced crowd of 3,950 at T-Mobile Arena.

“I’m not going to use that as an excuse for why we lost,” coach Pete DeBoer said. “We weren’t good enough to win tonight.”

The Knights (24-9-1, 49 points) fell one point behind Colorado in the West Division, the first time they haven’t been in first place since Feb. 22, and saw their six-game home streak come to an end.

Pietrangelo returned to the lineup after missing the past 12 games with an upper-body injury, and the Knights were set to field their preferred lineup for the first time since Jan. 26.

But forward Ryan Reaves was a late scratch after warmups with a lower-body injury, and DeBoer had to juggle his lines as a result.

The Knights also played the final 21:46 with 10 forwards after Chandler Stephenson was handed a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct for elbowing Los Angeles defenseman Tobias Bjornfot in the head late in the second period.

“You don’t want to go down two forwards,” captain Mark Stone said. “But it’s the nature of the business. I don’t think that really impacted the game at the time.”

Defenseman Shea Theodore finished with a goal and an assist, and William Karlsson scored in the second period for the Knights, who open a two-game series against third-place Minnesota on Thursday at T-Mobile Arena.

Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury started and lost for the third time in his past four appearances. It was the fifth time in the past nine games he has allowed four or more goals.

Karlsson cut the Knights’ deficit in half when he cashed in a rebound at 9:41 of the second period for his ninth goal.

But the Kings answered about two minutes later when Andreas Athanasiou won a race to a loose puck and fired a shot that handcuffed Fleury. Jaret Anderson-Dolan was camped out near the crease and tapped in the loose puck for a 3-1 advantage.

Alex Iafallo added to the lead late in the second when Fleury came out of his crease for a loose puck and couldn’t get there in time, leaving the Kings forward an open net.

“We needed to take advantage of that momentum,” Stone said. “We weren’t able to get another one, and it would have had a big impact had we been able to do that.”

The Knights fell behind for the third straight game when Athanasiou scored 1:58 into the first period.

Defenseman Sean Walker sent a high flip out of the defensive zone, and the speedy Athanasiou won the race to the puck before he beat Fleury on a breakaway for his seventh goal.

The Kings doubled their lead late in the first after a spell of sustained pressure. Fleury stopped Bjornfot’s drive from the point, but Lias Andersson, playing his first game since Feb. 16, was there to poke in the rebound at 17:23.

“It was one of those nights,” DeBoer said. “They played with a real desperation to start the game that we didn’t match, which was disappointing because you knew they were going to come with it.”

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.

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