Yes, the Vegas Golden Knights lost a second straight game without putting the puck in the back of the net.
The name of the game is scoring goals. It’s hard to win if that doesn’t happen.
But Thursday’s 4-0 loss to the Utah Mammoth was more about the goals they gave up than the ones they didn’t score.
The three goals Utah scored in the first 8:12 were all a result of broken weak-side coverage, something coach Bruce Cassidy urged in pre-scout discussions.
Much of those discussions felt like deja vu. Because it was the exact same issue Cassidy harped on Tuesday against the Buffalo Sabres. They handled that well in the 2-0 loss.
That wasn’t the case Thursday with the Knights being shut out for the second game in a row and extending their scoreless streak to 147 minutes, 9 seconds.
“Utah, very similar to Buffalo,” Cassidy said. “Half the pre-scout is east-west plays, weak-side coverage, weak-side coverage, weak-side coverage. We got beat twice in f—-ing weak-side coverage.
“If you want to bang the wall as a coach, obviously they didn’t get the message, so I got to do a better job there.”
Quick pull for Hill
The score sheet will read that Adin Hill was on the hook for three goals allowed on the Mammoth’s first three shots of the game. One would look to that and say Hill should’ve made a save on at least one of them before he was pulled in favor of Akira Schmid.
Cassidy attested that the decision to pull Hill was a combination of Hill needing to make a save and a wake-up call for the group that reverted back to its old ways of falling behind by multiple goals.
But it’s hard to put the entirety of the blame on the goalie who in his previous five starts was posting numbers near the top of all netminders in the NHL.
The first goal was off a lost defensive-zone faceoff. Utah defenseman John Marino fired a seam pass through traffic to Utah captain Clayton Keller with no backdoor coverage less than three minutes into the game.
Goal No. 2 came off a misplay by defensman Brayden McNabb on a rolling puck. Utah cycled it around, and four players wearing gold were zeroed in on the puck.
Zero players paid attention to Keller alone on the weak side, leaving Hill to fend for himself as Keller roofed it over his shoulder.
Defenseman Kaedan Korczak tried to stretch a pass to Pavel Dorofeyev to the offensive blue line, but was easily intercepted and turned into a 3-on-3 the other way.
Utah winger Jack McBain was uncovered on the weak side again and beat Hill to make it 3-0.
“It was pretty clear on how we feel they can generate offense,” Cassidy said. “And they did. Good for them.”
More of the same
The Knights were in a hole they’ve been all too familiar with this season, down multiple goals and in need of a comeback.
Cassidy was fine with the way they generated looks, but were off net too much for the second straight game. The Knights missed the net 28 times after misfiring 20 times Tuesday.
“It’s one of those situations where you’re you’re just looking at each other, like, ‘What’s going on here?’” defenseman Noah Hanifin said. “We had a lot of time to get back in the game. There were two and a half periods left. I think from that point on, we kind of controlled the game. Just again, we got to find ways to get the puck in the net here.”
The Knights don’t have much time to figure it out. There are 13 games left in the regular season. They’re about to play three road games in four days, starting Saturday against the Nashville Predators.
There won’t be a lot of practice time. There won’t be much time to work on weak-side coverage. The Knights have to do it on the fly.
“We’re going on the road again,” Hanifin said. “We don’t have much time left. We got to start winning games here.”
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
