The Vegas Golden Knights have played roughly 30 percent of their games this season, and so far, so good.
They sit at 15-7-3 after 25 games, but after one of the worst losses in the franchise’s brief history, it’s a good time to ask: How does the rest of the schedule look for Vegas?
Well, it’s nothing to be concerned about if you’re a Golden Knights fan. The Utah game was more abnormal than a potential trend.
Saturday’s aberration resulted from a tired team playing its seventh game in 10 days. The Golden Knights played well early in the game, but a pair of costly turnovers quickly turned the game upside down.
“I don’t think the score was indicative of the whole play, personally,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. ” The analytics back that. It didn’t go our way. .. It was going to be a big hole to dig out being the last two periods. It was unfortunate.”
Golden Knights Balancing Things
The Golden Knights spent more time on the road in November than in the season’s first month. Vegas was dominant at home and average on the road. That changed for the Golden Knights in November.
After starting off the home streak with eight consecutive victories, Vegas is 1-3 at T-Mobile Arena.
Flip that to the roadside; the Golden Knights are 4-1-1- in its last six road games.
“We knew it would balance itself out on both sides a little bit,” Cassidy said.
Comeback Kings
Vegas is one of the best teams when trailing. The Golden Knights are 8-6. when opponents score first and are 4-5 when trailing after two periods.
Cassidy knows his team cannot sustain winning in this fashion all season long, but doesn’t want to discredit the team’s resilience in the process. The positive to take is that once Vegas does get a lead, it usually results in good things. Vegas is 7-1-3 when scoring first and 8-1-0 when leading after two.
It’s just a matter of finding the offense early and playing better overall team defense.
How Things Look
The ebbs and flows of an 82-game season will have high marks and low marks. The Utah game will act as one of the low marks of the season, while 24 hours before – a gritty 4-3 victory against the NHL-leading Winnipeg Jets – will act as one of the high marks.
Things aren’t falling down for Vegas just yet. The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn has the Golden Knights at 90 percent likely to make the playoffs. That’s pretty good percentage on the first of December. He also has them tallying 100 points this season, which would be good enough to make the Western Conference playoffs as the No. 3 seed from the Pacific Division, if last year’s standings were any indication.
A third of the way through the season, the Golden Knights are steady. Not too high. Not too low. Theres much to improve on. But there’s plenty to like thus far.
It’s what happens in the last 57 games that will decide what happens to Vegas and how to gauge this season.
Paul Delos Santos is the Las Vegas sports insider for Dice City Sports. Follow him on X at @PaulDelos_.
