Special-teams skid continues as Golden Knights fall to Flyers

By Justin Emerson

Friday, Dec. 10, 2021 | 11:15 p.m.

It’s not just that the Golden Knights are allowing power-play goals. It’s that they’re coming quick, a sign that teams are having no issue breaking down the short-handed defense.

The Golden Knights allowed two more power-play goals in a 4-3 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday night, running their total up to five in their last two games. Vegas has killed just one of its last six penalties, and that one lasted five seconds before Philadelphia negated it with a penalty of its own.

Excluding the five-second penalty kill, the Golden Knights have been short-handed five times in the last two games, potentially 10:00 of short-handed ice time if they successfully killed them off. They’ve only spent 4:09 actually on the kill after Dallas and Philadelphia scored on all five chances.

“I think generally we just have to make more plays,” forward Reilly Smith said. “It seems like one person fumbles the puck or whatever it is doing their assignment and we don’t have anyone else bailing them out. So we just have to work better as a four- and a five-man unit.”

Tonight was the nadir of the Golden Knights’ recent penalty-killing woes, allowing the Flyers to score 17 seconds and 1:02 into their two full power plays. This is a Vegas team that entered Wednesday night against the Stars with an 83.8% penalty-killing success rate that ranked eighth in the NHL. After Friday that number is 78.4%, which ranks 11th from the bottom.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. Smith suggested they need to do a better job of winning faceoffs, and not allowing the opposition to immediately start setting up. On the Flyers’ first power-play goal of the night, Sean Couturier was left wide open at the top of the circle and goalie Laurent Brossoit was too slow getting across the crease to the post, and on their second the puck flitted across the crease to an open James van Riemsdyk.

What’s particularly disappointing for the Golden Knights is that strong penalty-killing has been one of their trademarks since their inception. They’ve finished in the top half of the league in three of their four years, peaking with an NHL-best 86.8% success rate last season, the first full season under coach Pete DeBoer.

The Sharks and Devils and Panthers all had strong penalty kills with DeBoer as coach, and signs pointed to the same being true for the Golden Knights. This year started well, but this week has tanked the numbers to a new low this season.

“When we’re really good, our detail is real good and we’re getting saves, and right now in those situations we’re not getting either of those things,” DeBoer said. “It’s got to be better, both areas. I think at the moment, right now, I’m more worried about our penalty kill right now than I am our power play.”

Ah yes, the power play. That has been a mess for the Golden Knights for a few years now. Much was made of last season’s playoff dry spell, including the 0-fer in the Stanley Cup semifinal against Montreal, but Vegas was a bottom-10 power-play team in the regular season, too. This year the Golden Knights started with 19 unsuccessful power plays, not scoring until the 11th game of the season.

They did score a power-play goal Friday, but it came on a 6-on-4 chance at the end of the game down by two goals. The previous five (really four because the five-second power play counts in the stat sheet) were unsuccessful and often listless throughout the evening.

The power play sits at 13.9%, fourth-worst in the league.

“One thing that needs to get better to get us over the hump I think is our power play,” captain Mark Stone said. “We got a late one but it wasn’t good enough.”

It’s frustrating because the Golden Knights have started to rediscover their 5-on-5 game. After the first quarter of the season went by with far too many chances and too many games on the wrong end of possession stats, the Golden Knights have flipped the numbers: They’ve had more shot attempts in eight of their last 10 games, with at least 55% of the shot attempts in five of those. They’ve outscored opponents 14-4 in those situations.

It’s why they won three in a row entering the night, and a big reason why they were tied in the third period tonight. Most of the game is played at 5-on-5, and if you can win that part of the game, you’re in good shape as long as you’re not getting decimated on special teams.

Which, unfortunately for the Golden Knights, they have been. Excluding each team’s five-second power play, the Flyers were 2-for-2 with the man advantage, and Vegas was 1-for-5. That was the difference.

“I like our 5-on-5 game, and I’m sure if you watch the video, it looks pretty solid,” Stone said. “But giving up five short-handed goals in the last two games and only scoring one power-play goal, odds aren’t great that you’re going to win the game.”