Vegas Golden Knights center Chandler Stephenson (20) scores past Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry (35) during the first period of an NHL hockey game at T-Mobile Arena Monday, Jan. 17, 2022.
Monday, Jan. 17, 2022 | 10:56 p.m.
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Mark Stone summed up the Golden Knights’ evening in one sentence: “You never want to get waxed in your own building like that,” the Vegas captain said.
Indeed, it was not a good night.
The Golden Knights scored three goals in the first period Monday against the Pittsburgh Penguins, then melted down after that, allowing five unanswered goals to fall 5-3 at T-Mobile Arena.
There was frustration and disappointment after the loss, a game where Vegas should have had two points and walked away with none.
“Couldn’t really get a flow in the second period, and unfortunately fought the rest of the night and just lost all momentum,” Stone said. “We didn’t have any pushback at all. They just kind of ran over us a bit.”
Golden Knights players stressed the importance of a fast start because they hadn’t played in a week and were facing a Penguins squad that had won 12 of 14 games.
Sure enough, Chandler Stephenson scored 3:43 into the game, then Evgenii Dadonov and Nicolas Roy ran Vegas’ total to three goals before the first period was over.
It was downhill from there.
The Penguins came out on fire in the second period, scoring twice and firing 13 shots at the Vegas net before the Golden Knights even had a shot on goal.
Part of the problem were two early penalties to put Vegas on its heels. The Golden Knights like to talk about how strong power plays can bleed into a team’s 5-on-5 game, which looked to be the case for the Penguins.
Mattias Janmark got the gate at 2:22 for tripping, and 40 seconds after he exited the box Roy went in for a trip of his own.
Jason Zucker got the Penguins on the board with six seconds left in the Roy penalty on a play Vegas goalie Robin Lehner believed was goaltender interference, but coach Pete DeBoer thought was too close to risk a challenge and the delay-of-game penalty that comes with being wrong. His team had spent basically five minutes killing penalties, and he couldn’t risk another two minutes.
Zucker, the Las Vegas native, was emphatic after his goal, and his energy was infectious. Teddy Blueger scored on the next shift and just like that the Penguins were back within a goal.
Pittsburgh ended the period with an 18-6 lead in shots, in one of the Golden Knights’ most lopsided periods of the season.
“We’re not playing our best but we’re capitalizing on some chances and then the second period happened,” Stone said. “We can obviously play with that team but we got outworked in that second period and like I said we couldn’t find it again the rest of the night.”
The Penguins needed just 28 seconds of third-period action to tie it on Zucker’s second of the game, then Jake Guentzel’s wrap-around at the 2:12 mark put the Penguins up for good. Sidney Crosby added an empty-netter with 1:08 left in the game.
The Golden Knights were outshot 37-26, the first time with fewer shots than the opponent since Nov. 16, a span of 24 outings. That streak was the third-longest since shots on goal became an official stat in 1959-60.
It was also the Golden Knights’ fifth loss in their last six games, all at home, as the place they call “The Fortress” has looked mighty penetrable since the calendar flipped to 2022. Some good teams have come to town in that time, and the Penguins were one of them, and the Golden Knights had them in their grasp.
Then a 3-0 lead turned into a 5-3 defeat.
“We have to use it as a learning opportunity and move forward. That’s our job,” coach Pete DeBoer said. “The immediate reaction is your disappointed and a little frustrated because you feel like that one was one you had and shouldn’t have gotten away from you. We have to learn from that so it doesn’t happen again.”
