The offense seems to be hard to come by for the Vegas Golden Knights in their last two games. The Toronto Maple Leafs shut out the Golden Knights 3-0 at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday.
“Lately, we haven’t had the scoring we had earlier in the year. We knew that would balance out. It was higher than most. Shooting percentage was high,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Our five-on-five game was fine. The third period was uncharacteristic of us. We didn’t do much right. We ended up paying the price.”
Here are some takeaways from the game:
Poor Finish
The Golden Knights are one of the better third-period teams in the NHL. Against the Maple Leafs, that wasn’t the case.
The team gave up a critical goal at 3:01 of the third period when an attempt to tie the game on the penalty kill resulted in a power-play goal the other way.
“We have a 2-on-1 opportunity to tie the game. We don’t make a play. We get caught up ice,” Cassidy said. “We gave their two best players a practice 2-on-1. All of a sudden, it’s 2-0. That was, to me, a major turning point. We have to be more responsible with our decision-making.”
Aside from that one special teams play, the Golden Knights found themselves chasing the game but were unable to win battles and races to the puck.
Hill For Team Canada?
Vegas goalie Adin Hill continued his strong run of form against the Maple Leafs. He made 23 saves with two goals allowed.
The run of performances has placed Hill back in the conversation to make the Team Canada roster for the Four Nations Challenge in February. Hill was already considered one of the choices, but his recent play should strengthen his cause.
“’Hilly’ played well,” Cassidy said. “He did some good work. His game has gotten better in his last seven or eight games. He’s playing a little more. It got him into a rhythm.”
Power (Play) Outage
The Golden Knights challenged Toronto goalie Joseph Woll, firing off 31 shots. But none found its way past the Maple Leafs’ goalie, who shut out the Vegas.
The power play, which had been reliable to get a timely goal this season, had seven shots on goal.
“We generated a few good looks. It didn’t help the team enough,” Vegas forward Jack Eichel said. “It’s frustrating; you want to come up big in those situations and give the team momentum. We had some chances. We’ll look at it and figure out what we can do better and turn around.”
Golden Knights Look Ahead To Ottawa
The Golden Knights play again Thursday against the Ottawa Senators at 4 p.m. Pacific time.
This forces Vegas to turn the page on the Toronto shutout and focus on their next challenge.
“We’re playing in 20 hours, so learn from the game,” Eichel said. “We need to be better. It’s frustrating. You lose a few in a row. You don’t want to let this go [longer]. We need to find a way to get two points.”
The last time these two teams met in Vegas, the Golden Knights rallied to pick up a 6-4 victory on Oct. 26.
Paul Delos Santos is the Las Vegas sports insider for Dice City Sports. Follow him on X at @PaulDelos_.
