Golden Knights’ season in jeopardy after Game 5 home loss to Canadiens

By Justin Emerson

Tuesday, June 22, 2021 | 10:30 p.m.

T-Mobile Arena is often praised as one the loudest, most electric buildings in the NHL. The fans love their Golden Knights, and it’s a sign that things are going poorly when those fans start to turn. Very poorly.

Boos rained down on the Golden Knights during yet another unsuccessful power play in the second period Tuesday, then again as they left the ice for intermission. The Golden Knights dropped Game 5 by a 4-1 margin and face elimination in Game 6 down 3-2 in the series. Fans were aware of that, and weren’t afraid to let their feelings known.

“We weren’t playing well so maybe we deserved it,” defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “We got outworked from puck drop, so, I mean, it is what it is. Our fans are great, we love are fans, but I’m sure they were frustrated, as were we.”

Vegas didn’t give its fans many reasons to cheer in Game 5, carrying a tough offensive performance in Game 4 back to T-Mobile Arena. In that game, the Golden Knights kept the Canadiens from pulling away, where a third-period goal was an equalizer instead of a drop in the ocean. Max Pacioretty did get that third-period goal 4:09 in, but allowed himself only a subtle fist pump as a celebration, knowing how much further his team had to go.

There’s myriad reasons why the Golden Knights fell behind — their passing wasn’t crisp, they had trouble sidestepping Montreal’s forecheck — but the power play is a five-alarm fire level of concern. Their first-period o-fer was their 12th power play this series without a goal, and when they came up empty late in the second it dropped them to 4-for-41 in the postseason, a dismal 9.8% that is the worst among all 16 playoff teams this year.

Forward Reilly Smith said after Game 3 the power play is costing the Golden Knights the series, but they’re not doing themselves any favors at 5-on-5 either. Smith could say that because Vegas had just turned in a terrific 5-on-5 game where four empty power plays prevented them from pulling away and letting Montreal tie the game on a goalie gaffe.

But 5-on-5 hasn’t been good since that Game 3. Even the Game 4 victory was one of the poorest offensive outings Vegas has ever had in the playoffs, and the Golden Knights haven’t looked like themselves going on seven periods of hockey.

And credit to the Canadiens, who are capitalizing on what feels like every Vegas mistake. Nick Holden pinched too far into the offensive zone in the first period to allow Josh Anderson to break free and set up Jesperi Kotkaniemi’s goal. No one picked up a wide-open Eric Staal in the second. Later in the second, Mark Stone turned the puck over short-handed, then was too slow on his back-check to prevent Cole Caufield’s goal.

As the captain and leading scorer from the regular season, Stone will bear the load of a poor game, and he struggled Tuesday. At 5-on-5 with him on the ice, the Golden Knights generated just 23% of the shots and 35% of the expected goals, both worst among any Vegas forward, according to stats site Natural Stat Trick. He remains one of just four players without a point this series, and the other three are fourth-liners.

“This isn’t a night that we’re going to pile on people,” coach Pete DeBoer said when asked about Stone. “We’ve been on a long playoff road here and we’ve gotten a lot of unbelievable efforts. It was an off night by everybody. Everybody’s in that boat, not just Mark Stone.”

It would be one thing if the Golden Knights were getting shut down by Montreal’s future Hall of Famer in goal, but they didn’t force Carey Price to put the game on his back and carry the Canadiens to victory. He faced only nine shots before Caufield’s goal put Montreal up by three and shifted the odds from likely victory to an almost assured one.

He’s been solid this series, but he hasn’t been stealing any games the way many predicted he’d need to for the Canadiens to have a chance. They’ve just outplayed Vegas for much of this series, which is troubling for the Golden Knights.

“We’ve got to play better and we know we can,” forward Nicolas Roy said. “When we play our best we have four lines, six ‘D’ and everybody’s going hard, one line after another. And I don’t think we did that tonight.”

The Golden Knights have won plenty of games they needed to win this postseason, like Game 2 against the Wild or Game 3 against the Avalanche. But it’s never truly a “must-win game” until the only option is elimination.

They’ll face a must-win game on Thursday in Montreal, where they won’t have the home fans behind them. And if they don’t win Game 6, it won't be until next season before T-Mobile Arena sees the Golden Knights again.

“Sometimes things don’t go the way you planned, but I’ve said it all series long: You play seven games for a reason,” defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said. “We’re going to go to Montreal, we’ve got a job to do. Refocus tomorrow, get on a plane, and get the job done in a couple of days.”