Golden Knights struggle without Fleury in net, fall to Flyers

By Justin Emerson

Monday, Oct. 21, 2019 | 7:30 p.m.

Making his first NHL appearance in nearly two years, Oscar Dansk had a rough Monday night.

Dansk, giving up six goals on 37 shots to the Philadelphia Flyers, and the Golden Knights fell at Wells Fargo Center, 6-2.

It was Dansk’s fourth career start and prior to Monday he had a .946 save percentage and 1.78 goals-against average. All four of his previous four games (three starts) came in 2017. Marc-Andre Fleury was given a night off on the front end of a back-to-back.

The Golden Knights got their first goal in the third period, a Jonathan Marchessault one-timer for the franchise’s second-ever 5-on-3 goal. Mark Stone had the primary assist, his team-best 13th point of the season.

Reilly Smith scored the other goal, a breakaway for his team-leading seventh of the year.

“We feel bad because we left Oscar out to dry tonight,” Smith said to AT&T SportsNet. “We gave away two points tonight.”

Here are three takeaways from the game.

Penalties starting to add up

The Golden Knights' penalty kill entered the night with the best success rate in the league at 94.3%. That’s 33 of 35 times short-handed that did not end with a power-play goal. The problem is that they have been short-handed 35 times in nine games.

Vegas averaged a league-high 12:46 penalty minutes per game, and it was only a matter of time before it bent. Vegas took five more penalties on Monday and saw the Flyers net two power-play goals.

Brayden McNabb has been the worst offender as his second-period boarding minor gave him a team-high 18 penalty minutes on the season. No one else has taken more than three, but 13 players have taken multiple penalties this year.

Line changes

Coach Gerard Gallant likes to reconfigure the lines if the team isn’t clicking, but often it’s swapping a player or two. To start the second period Monday, Gallant shook up the entire top-nine. The game started with the regular rotation:

Jonathan Marchessault—William Karlsson—Reilly Smith

Max Pacioretty—Paul Stastny—Mark Stone

Brandon Pirri—Cody Eakin—Cody Glass

To start the second though, it looked dramatically different.

Pacioretty—Karlsson—Smith

Marchessault—Stastny—Glass

Pirri—Eakin—Stone

It either worked or it didn’t at first depending if you subscribe to process- or results-based analysis. The Flyers scored twice before the first TV timeout, including twice in a 44-second span. But the Golden Knights did have six shots on goal in the first six minutes of the period before Philadelphia scored.

Near the end though, nothing was working. The Flyers scored another two goals in a 55-second span and had four goals on 10 shots in the second period. A line shake-up wasn’t Vegas’ only issue.

“There’s no excuse for us,” Marchessault told AT&T SportsNet. “After we gave so many chances, we weren’t there for Dansk. It’s unfortunate.”

Fleury’s workload

Fleury’s heavy workload is a hot topic of conversation. But after Dansk’s shaky season debut, it’s fair to wonder when Fleury will get a night off again.

Fleury had played in every Golden Knights game prior to Monday, starting eight and relieving Malcolm Subban once when Subban was injured. Fleury played Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and with a back-to-back Monday and Tuesday, it was logical to sit him against the Flyers.

So when is the next time he he will sit? The Golden Knights only have one back-to-back in November. If Subban remains hurt, how often Fleury plays will be a dominating storyline over the next month.