It’s a slippery slope trying to balance a bad three-minute stretch and equating it to the game’s overall result.
It’s near impossible to do that when the Vegas Golden Knights have struggled to consistently put together a winning formula.
The Knights couldn’t stop the bleeding in the second period — a problem that’s become too commonplace as of late — in their 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Friday.
For a team notorious for flipping the switch when down three goals, even a situation like that — where you shouldn’t have gone down by three in the first place — makes it difficult to come back from.
“You can’t let the game slip away in those four minutes,” center Jack Eichel said. “They’re a good team. They’re going to get their chances. You can’t let one trickle into three.”
The end result will overshadow some of the good the Knights did.
Their fourth line, literally created on Thursday, was the brightest spot. Nic Dowd had a solid debut. Cole Smith looked fast and forechecked well.
Colton Sissons, playing right wing, had two breakaways in the first period.
The Knights did everything right in the first part of the game to where fate should’ve been better for them.
“We were willing to dump it in, forecheck, go get pucks and create chances off our cycle,” Eichel said. “I don’t think we had too many odd-man rushes. We had chances. We had some chances to capitalize, but at the end of the day, didn’t do enough to find the back of the net and it was the difference tonight.”
But puck luck wasn’t on the Knights’ side. They had three breakaways in the first 25 minutes and didn’t convert.
It took one from Wild winger Mats Zuccarello to open the floodgates.
Three minutes after, Minnesota is up three goals and the Knights are — once again — swimming up stream.
“It’s a lot of the same right?” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We got behind. We had a bad stretch. We should be better than that. We’re a veteran group.”
They responded well, as they often have. They did so in Buffalo on Tuesday. They did so again the next night in Detroit, and found a way to win that game.
They even did so in the third period in Washington a week ago and nearly won that one.
But the losses keep piling up. The Knights aren’t in position to be searching for moral victories.
They’re 5-9-2 since trading for Rasmus Andersson, who has dealt with plenty — emotionally and physically — to where it wouldn’t be surprising if he’s not in the right head space.
The blue line had one of its collective disappointing performances on Friday.
Noah Hanifin had three giveaways, including the one that led to Zuccarello’s goal — even if Cassidy said the forwards should have been covering the point better.
Shea Theodore had two giveaways of his own. Brayden McNabb had a rough game defensively, as well.
Andersson was a team-worst minus-2. Cassidy noted on the third goal that he could’ve done a better job tying up a stick to not allow Minnesota to reload.
“That was the issue. Even the beginning of that, we had first touch on the breakout from below the goal line that they end up recovering,” Cassidy said. “I think that was a huge problem for us tonight.”
The Knights have to roll with the punches. There’s not much time in the schedule to reset, practice and fix things. They’re playing almost every other day between now and the end of the season.
That slippery slope isn’t getting any easier to climb.
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
