The Vegas Golden Knights enter the holiday break on a sour note, losing their third consecutive game on the road to the Florida Panthers 4-2. With this loss and the Vancouver Canucks defeating the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night, the Golden Knights have now dropped to second in the Pacific Division standings with a 21-9-5 record.
The last time the Golden Knights made a trip down to Sunrise, Florida, was in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final last season, where they won 3-2 to take a 3-2 series lead. While the Golden Knights entered this game with a 6-3-1 record in the regular season against the Panthers, all four of those losses had come on the road
The Panthers were also looking to get back to their winning ways before heading into the holiday break, losing four of their last five games. Outside of not getting the results they want, the bigger concern for the Panthers has been their lack of scoring, putting up just seven goals in their previous five games.
Golden Knights’ Historically Bad Start
This was one of the worst starts that the Golden Knights have had to a game this season, and if it weren’t for Jiri Patera playing as well as he did, things could’ve gotten ugly very quickly. The Golden Knights set a franchise record for the longest start to a game without recording a shot on goal, while also allowing the most shots on goal in a single period all season.
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In the first period, the Golden Knights allowed 39 shot attempts, 20 shots on goal, 14 scoring chances, and eight high-danger chances, but the score remained 0-0. Mark Stone opened the scoring for the Golden Knights less than two minutes into the second period on the first real scoring chance they had in the game. This was Stone’s 11th goal of the season, and he now has eight points in the last nine games.
Both teams would start getting things going offensively after Stone’s opening goal, with Sam Bennett and Gustav Forsling scoring consecutively for the Panthers to give them a 2-1 lead. With these two goals, the Golden Knights finished their three-game road trip being outscored 9-2 in the second period.
The Golden Knights would then outshoot the Panthers 8-1 in the last four minutes of the period, with Pavel Dorofeyev capitalizing on a beautiful cross-crease pass from Ben Hutton to tie the game with 22 seconds left in the period. Unfortunately, that’s where their offense would dry out, putting up just nine shots in the third period.
Golden Knights’ Defensive Disaster
To say that the Golden Knights have struggled defensively in December would be an understatement. They’ve allowed 38 goals in 11 games this month, which is the eighth most in the league, with 31 of them being scored in their last seven games.
They’ve been good enough offensively to keep themselves in games, scoring a league-leading 43 goals this month, but their continuous lack of discipline has become the primary reason why they have come out on the losing end of things as of late.
The Golden Knights have taken 39 penalties in the month of December, which is the seventh-most in the league and have killed just 68.8% of them. This ranks them 29th in the league this month, which is a drastic decrease from the 86.3% they were operating at up until this point.
They took six penalties in this game, and they were fortunate enough to kill off the first four. However, the two most pivotal goals of the game, the 3-2 go-ahead goal by Sam Reinhart and the 4-2 goal by Carter Verhaeghe, would both come on the power play in the third period.
There are obvious issues outside of the excessive amount of penalties they take, mainly related to their breakout, but they aren’t doing themselves any favors by spending over half of a period’s worth of time shorthanded. Since Bruce Cassidy became head coach, I don’t think there’s been another point in time where the Golden Knights’ defensive structure has been a bigger concern than it is right now.
Final Thoughts
It feels like the Golden Knights desperately needed to get to this holiday break. They’ve looked out of sync throughout this road trip and more importantly, need their goaltenders to get healthy. Patera has done more than he should be asked for at this point in the season, and while injuries are impossible to predict, there’s a level of expectation for Adin Hill and Logan Thompson to be able to carry a bigger load in the second half of the season.
The Golden Knights have two more divisional games against the Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Kings before they head down to T-Mobile Park in Seattle for the annual Winter Classic, where they’ll take on the Kraken. This next stretch of games will be a great opportunity for the Golden Knights to get back in the win column and take back the top spot in the Pacific Division.
