Two-goal deficits continue to curse Golden Knights in loss to Canucks

By Justin Emerson

Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019 | 10:25 p.m.

The Golden Knights will be pleased to have fought back and earned a point that moves them into a tie for the Pacific Division lead. But that other point, the one they would have earned had they won, felt oh so close.

The Golden Knights fell to the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena on Thursday, 5-4 in overtime. Vegas scored late in the third period to tie the game, had an even later power play and outshot Vancouver but couldn’t ever grab the lead.

The Golden Knights are tied with the Arizona Coyotes with 44 points for the division lead, but Arizona holds the tiebreaker by virtue of playing fewer games.

“We knew that we were playing a pretty good game and that if we just maintained that we’d be able to come back and give ourselves a chance to win,” forward Max Pacioretty told AT&T SportsNet. “Obviously just a bit short, but there were some chances there to close it out.”

The Canucks had leads of 2-0 and 3-1, but the Golden Knights erased them to force overtime. Jonathan Marchessault, Reilly Smith and Nick Holden all scored in the first two periods, then Mark Stone evened the game with 4:20 remaining in the third after Vancouver took a 4-3 lead.

The Golden Knights had a chance on the power play with 2:30 left, but a near-miracle save by Jacob Markstrom on Paul Stastny kept the game even. Vegas outshot the Canucks 43-34.

Elias Pettersson scored twice for Vancouver, and Antoine Roussel and Tanner Pearson also scored. Christopher Tanev netted the overtime winner.

Here are three takeaways from the loss.

Two-goal deficit woes

If the Golden Knights go down by two goals, the game is more or less over this season. Thursday’s loss marked the 12th time this season that they fell behind by two goals at any point in the game and have lost all 12 of them, with the previous 11 coming in regulation.

“It’s tough to come back in this league,” Smith said to AT&T SportsNet. “Score a couple more goals in the first period and capitalize on our chances and it’s a much different game.”

Only once before this season had Vegas fallen behind by two and even rallied to tie it, and that was Nov. 16 in Los Angeles. The Kings scored two first-period goals and eventually went up 3-1 in the second, but Vegas scored twice to tie it 3-3 before surrendering a third-period goal and falling 4-3.

Thursday’s game eerily followed the same script. Vegas allowed the first two goals, scored then allowed another goal to make it 3-1. The Golden Knights scored twice before the second period ended, then gave up a goal in the third. This time, though, they were able to answer with the game-tying goal once again to force overtime.

Top line doing its thing

The first two Vegas goals of the evening, and even one of the goals in the team’s last game against Vancouver on Sunday, featured shades of the inaugural season in the way the top line of Marchessault, Smith and William Karlsson clicked. The goals were all a thing of beauty too, the kind of tic-tac-toe puck movement that made the trio arguably the best line in the league in Year 1.

The first one on Thursday saw Smith slide the puck to Karlsson, and Karlsson’s rebound went right to Marchessault for the easy goal. The second one had Karlsson flipping the puck out from behind the net to Marchessault, who went to Smith for the goal.

The trio had six combined points and 13 of the Golden Knights’ 43 shots in the game.

Vancouver dominance paused

Two nights after defeating the Minnesota Wild in regulation for the first time in franchise history, the Golden Knights avoided losing in regulation to the Canucks for the first time in franchise history. It was a complete role reversal from Sunday’s meeting, where Vegas played one of its most complete games of the season in beating Vancouver 6-3 at home.

Entering Thursday, the Golden Knights were 8-0-1 all-time against Vancouver, the only team against which whey had recorded at least a point in every game. They were perfect in four games at Rogers Arena and the only loss came in a home shootout last season.