Injury-riddled Golden Knights figure a way to beat Kraken

By Justin Emerson

Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021 | 11:10 p.m.

The Golden Knights aren’t going to overpower teams like they’ve grown accustomed to over the years — not with so many key scoring forwards injured.

Sometimes they’ll need to outwork a team and grind out a victory, and Tuesday was exactly that.

The Golden Knights were chasing much of the early parts of the game, and their offense failed to generate many chances. But their defense stood tall, their goalie played well and they capitalized on what opportunities they did have, picking up a 4-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken at T-Mobile Arena.

“I said when we got the injuries that we were going to have to find different ways to win games and it wasn’t going to be pretty,” coach Pete DeBoer said. “And this group might play to their potential the whole time we’re out without these key guys, might play great and might be .500. That might just be what we are.

“I think what they’re proving is that they’re better than that.”

So often when the Golden Knights win a game it’s because they overwhelm their opponent. Vegas has been a possession juggernaut for years, racking up the second-most shots and allowing the fourth-fewest shots since their inception. They shoot a lot and don’t allow many shots, a solid recipe for success.

That hasn’t happened so far this season, and many games have looked like the start of Tuesday’s. Seattle scored first and held that lead for nearly 15 minutes, into the final minute of the first period. The Golden Knights had just two high-danger chances in the first (according to Natural Stat Trick) but then got a goal that wasn’t even close to one of those dangerous looks.

Alex Pietrangelo’s seeing-eye wrister from 53 feet out had just a 1.5% chance of becoming a goal, according to Moneypuck.com. Seattle goalie Chris Driedger had a rough night, and Vegas was more than happy to take advantage.

“I think we had some puck luck but we also had a lot of guys in front of his eyes,” defenseman Shea Theodore said. “I think when you have guys at the net and you’re able to get pucks through it’s definitely tougher to stop, for sure.”

The second period was even more of an encapsulation of Vegas finding a way to stay in the game. Seattle owned the period, out-attempting the Golden Knights 22-7 and scoring with 31 seconds left to take its second lead of the game.

Instead of allowing that goal to put Vegas in a hole going to intermission, the line of William Carrier, Chandler Stephenson and Evegnii Dadonov forechecked hard, did the dirty work in front of the net, and Dadonov put home the equalizer with 16 seconds left in the period.

It set up a third period where Vegas put the game to bed. Reilly Smith deflected a Theodore point shot 30 seconds in, then scored again on a brilliant power-play goal to make the score 4-2.

Then the Golden Knights locked it down. They allowed 17 shot attempts and 10 scoring chances but, crucially, none of them was rated as high-danger. The Kraken had their worst offensive period when they needed goals the most, and that’s a credit to what may have been Vegas’ best defensive performance of the season.

“We did a lot of good things,” Pietrangelo said. “Those shot totals, sometimes they have 50 but 20 of them are from right in tight, and those are the ones we’re trying to get rid of because it’s just extra work down low that we don’t need to give our goalies.”

The defense has struggled on the year, rating as one of the worst in the league in terms of expected-goals allowed by most models. Their wins have been the product of offense showing up, and strong play by Robin Lehner.

On Tuesday, they could credit the defensive structure they’ve been working toward. They suffocated the Kraken as the game went on, and did enough at the other end to secure the win.

It wasn’t the flashy victory we’ve come to expect from the Golden Knights over the years, but it’s two points in the standings just the same.