The Golden Knights did enough to win this game twice. They just never put it away.
Vegas built a two-goal lead, hit a pair of early posts and got two goals from Mark Stone, but still left Climate Pledge Arena with only one point in a 4-3 shootout loss to the Kraken on Thursday night. The result snapped the Golden Knights’ four-game winning streak under John Tortorella and dropped them into second place in the Pacific at 89 points, one behind Edmonton and tied with Anaheim with three games left.
Chances missed, lead built
This was the kind of start Vegas wanted.
The Golden Knights came out with pace, created traffic and nearly broke the game open in the first period. Noah Hanifin hit the left post, then Rasmus Andersson rang one off the right post before Stone finally opened the scoring at 10:04 with a wrist shot off a feed from Andersson.
That was the first sign Vegas had more than enough to control this one. The Golden Knights kept coming, and Stone struck again just 55 seconds into the second period when he buried a loose puck at the right post to make it 2-0.
That should have been the launch point.
Instead, Seattle stayed close and found a door back into the game late in the period. Jared McCann scored on the power play at 17:54, cutting the lead to 2-1 and changing the feel going into the third.
The bounce that changed it
Vegas answered well at first.
Brett Howden made it 3-1 just 1:11 into the third when Mitch Marner’s cross-slot pass deflected off Pavel Dorofeyev and then off Howden’s skate into the net. At that point, the Golden Knights looked ready to close it out.
Then the game flipped.
Berkly Catton cut it to 3-2 at 6:11 after Adam Larsson’s dump-in hit a stanchion and kicked into the slot while Adin Hill was behind the net. Tortorella called it the bounce that “gives them life,” and he was right. Seattle had energy again, and Vegas never fully settled the game after that.
Bobby McMann tied it at 9:16, beating Hill from the right circle through traffic after the Golden Knights failed to cleanly break the play.
Marner pointed to the real issue after the game.
“We just got to do a better job on the walls, get pucks out,” he said. “Especially in the third, with 10 minutes left, that’s an important play all over the walls.”
That is the hockey truth of it. The bounce was bad luck. The response after it was not good enough.
One point, not enough
Hill made sure Vegas got at least something from the night.
He stopped 30 shots in regulation and overtime, then made several key saves during a long, chaotic 3-on-3 stretch to keep the game alive. However, the shootout went the familiar wrong way. Marner scored in the first round, but Joey Daccord stopped Stone, Jack Eichel, Shea Theodore and Dorofeyev. Catton scored the winner in the fifth round.
Tortorella did not sound interested in turning the loss into something bigger.
“We’ll grab this point and get on the plane and get out to Colorado,” he said.
That is the only choice now. Still, this one will sting. Vegas had the better start, the better lead and enough chances to salt it away. Instead, the Golden Knights left a second point behind in Seattle and tightened the pressure heading into the final three games.
Up Next
The Golden Knights close the road trip Saturday in Colorado, where the test gets much harder.
Vegas heads into Ball Arena to face the Avalanche, who lead the NHL with 114 points and have already taken the first two meetings in the season series. Colorado won 4-2 on Oct. 31 and then edged Vegas 6-5 in a shootout on Dec. 27.
This is the toughest remaining game on the schedule by record and, for Vegas, a chance to steady itself quickly after the point left behind in Seattle. The Avalanche come in at 52-16-10 and 7-3-0 in their last 10, while the Golden Knights are 5-2-3 over that same stretch.
Colorado also brings the league’s best goals-against average at 2.46 per game and the NHL’s top penalty kill at 84.3 percent. Vegas, meanwhile, still carries the stronger power play at 24.7 percent, so special teams could still matter in a game that figures to be tighter than most.
Puck drop is set for 5 p.m.
Related stories
Golden Knights beat Canucks 2-1, reach first-place tie at 88 points
Welcome to Dice City Sports — where we provide premium, exclusive, up-to-date news and analysis surrounding the Las Vegas sports scene. Follow along on social media, and check back for new articles daily!
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.
