- Golden Knights have scored 11 goals in five games and lost four of them
- Vegas fell 5-2 to Connor Hellebuyck and the Devils on Friday
- Read below for what Ryan Craig said and the four-game trip ahead
The Golden Knights have a scoring problem, and it showed up fast.
Vegas has scored just 11 goals in its last five games and lost four of them, including a 5-2 defeat to the New Jersey Devils at T-Mobile Arena on Friday. Only six of those 11 goals came at 5-on-5, a real power outage for a lineup that features Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner and Mark Stone.
It looks even stranger next to how the season started. The Golden Knights opened 8-2 and scored 41 goals in those 10 games, 29 of them at even strength. They now sit at 9-5-1 and are 1-3-1 in their last five.
Take away Tuesday’s 4-1 win over Ottawa and Vegas has seven goals in four losses, and one of those losses came in overtime. Even in the win, only one goal came at 5-on-5. Two were empty-netters and another was on the power play.
Head coach Ryan Craig was asked after the loss about the lack of finish.
“We are creating some opportunities,” Craig said. “We haven’t finished as well. We haven’t played with a lead as much as we did earlier. So it could be those things force you to squeeze your stick a little bit. We shouldn’t be concerned about that part of our game because when we do manage the puck and we do check, we create enough, they’re going to go in.”
Ivan Barbashev, who scored Friday, was blunter about how the game went.
“Just didn’t play well,” Barbashev said. “It’s just on us. We didn’t play well enough today. There have been some good moments in the first period, but that was it. They just shut us down in the second and third.”
That is how it played out. Vegas led 2-1 late in the first period after goals from Stone and Barbashev. Arseny Gritsyuk tied it at 18:51, and the Devils took over from there. Gritsyuk and Jack Hughes each scored twice, and Luke Hughes added a goal. Check out the Jack Hughes goal, a slick move between Stone’s legs:
Hellebuyck made 19 saves for his second straight win since the Devils got him from Winnipeg on Oct. 23. Adin Hill stopped 27 shots for Vegas. Marner had two assists in the loss.
The standings are starting to reflect the slide. Vegas spent most of the early season in first place in the Pacific Division, but the Oilers are now a point ahead of them. Earlier this month Stone had a hat trick in a 6-2 rout of the Flames, back when the goals came easy.
The schedule does not get any easier. The Golden Knights get on the ice Saturday and then head east for four games, starting Monday at Boston and continuing through Pittsburgh, Detroit and Buffalo. Craig said the focus is on execution.
“It’s completing passes. It’s stacking shifts,” Craig said. “Can you build off that? Can you get back to work when it doesn’t go your way?”
Vegas has been in a dry spell before and come out of it, and an 84-game season leaves plenty of room to fix it. The road trip will show how fast.
