The Vegas Golden Knights had one of their poorer defensive performances in Saturday night's 4-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers.
Much of the fallout can be attributed to Edmonton's scoring in transition, an aspect of the game Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said was due partly to the Oilers' execution and partly to Vegas' inability to stop the rush.
"[E]arly on, they got through the middle of the ice, right?" Cassidy said. "Two veteran defensemen just missed their assignment or were late picking it up, whatever you want to call it. So they get an early lead, and something we're trying to establish is territory early on in the first period. Especially a team coming in here the night before. So that one's on us. Good play by them, but a structure mistake by us. Couple of other ones were odd-man rushes. I mean, [Connor] McDavid got in alone once, I think that was just hockey. He just found some open ice, and that's going to happen. A couple of one-on-ones are going to happen in hockey.
"They got good players that are going to beat us periodically, but a couple of goals, we were little late on a pinch, little late covering, and again, that's a structure one after we scored. That's disappointing. Another one, we were trying to join the rush when maybe it wasn't there against McDavid's line. That's a proposition to want to get involved, and sure enough, we didn't execute. Now they're gone again. So you look at those three goals, odd-man rushes, probably preventable plays.
"So ... good for them for taking advantage of it. In their locker room, that's what they're thinking. In our locker room, you can't make those mistakes, never mind Edmonton -- anybody. You can't give up odd-man rushes all night. This is something we talked about in training camp in September. That we're going to play smarter hockey, but we didn't do that tonight."
The Golden Knights will be back in action on their home ice when they host the Dallas Cowboys on Monday.
Follow along with VGK Today for live updates throughout the game.
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