The Golden Knights fell behind again Tuesday and couldn’t climb all the way out, losing 3-2 to the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center. Vegas trailed 3-0 early in the second period before cutting it to one, but the equalizer never came. “We get behind… sort of get punched in the face and we get to our game,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We’ve been talking about trying to get there before that happens a lot.” Vegas also played without captain Mark Stone (upper body, day-to-day), and Cassidy said earlier in the trip the team would need to “pick up the slack” while it works through the post-Olympic reset and a bit of illness moving through the room.
Buffalo builds the lead
Buffalo opened the scoring at 4:02 of the first when Jason Zucker snapped home a shot with Ryan McLeod and Rasmus Dahlin assisting. The Sabres doubled the lead 46 seconds into the second on Owen Power’s wrist shot, then made it 3-0 at 5:44 when Tage Thompson scored in his first home game since winning Olympic gold with Team USA, finishing a rush play set up by Alex Tuch and Dahlin. Cassidy pointed to the early damage as a familiar mix of loose details and bad breaks in the defensive zone, especially off faceoffs. “They get a couple that bounce around on a on D-zone faceoffs,” he said. “We blew the first coverage a little bit, but they got a fortunate bounce. And I think we put one on our own net on the other one.”
Stone absence
Vegas also played without captain Mark Stone, who was ruled out Tuesday with a left arm injury. Stone was struck on the upper left arm by a stick during a neutral-zone check late in the first period of Sunday’s loss at Pittsburgh, and the Golden Knights were again forced to juggle the lineup as they tried to solve their post-break slow-start trend.
Vegas pushes back, but runs out of time
Vegas finally found its game in the middle frame. Ivan Barbashev made it 3-1 at 6:50 with a wraparound, assisted by Shea Theodore and Jack Eichel. Ninety-seven seconds later, Pavel Dorofeyev pulled the Golden Knights within one at 8:27, beating Alex Lyon with a wrist shot off a feed from Reilly Smith. Vegas generated chances late and carried play for stretches, but couldn’t find the tying goal. “Definitely had plenty of looks to tie that hockey game up, at least get one point out of here,” Colton Sissons said. “But… just too little too late again.”
What they said
Cassidy said the urgency can’t keep arriving only after the deficit does. “We just have to do it sooner,” he said. Sissons echoed the same theme, pointing to puck management and a simpler mindset when things aren’t coming easily. “Sometimes there’s just… the more simple we can be, the better,” he said. “Once we started just dumping pucks in and forchecking and turning things over, it really started to turn the tide.”
Stats that mattered
Buffalo won the faceoff battle 55.7% to 44.3%, a gap that showed up in the Golden Knights’ end during the early sequence of goals. Tomas Hertl went 3-for-11 (27.3%), while Jack Eichel finished 8-for-19 (42.1%). Vegas edged Buffalo 29-28 in shots and went 0-for-1 on the power play, with Buffalo also 0-for-1. Akira Schmid finished with 25 saves on 28 shots.
Up next
Vegas wraps the road trip Wednesday at Detroit (4 p.m. PT). The Golden Knights return home Friday to face Minnesota (7 p.m. PT), looking for a cleaner start and a reset after back-to-back road losses.
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Dice City Sports editor Mark Hebert covers the Vegas Golden Knights, Las Vegas Raiders, Athletics, and UNLV baseball and softball. He has 24 years of journalism experience, is also a senior reporter at Exhibit City News, and previously covered the Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers. Follow him on X or connect on LinkedIn.
