Knights vs Jets ends 4-1 as Vegas wastes late power plays

Bleeding again

The Knights opened with a solid first period and put 13 shots on Connor Hellebuyck. Tomas Hertl, Keegan Kolesar, Ivan Barbashev and Mark Stone all had early looks, but Winnipeg found the first finish.

Kyle Connor scored at 17:25 of the first period off feeds from Josh Morrissey and Mark Scheifele to give the Jets a 1-0 lead. Then the game tilted hard in the second.

Alex Iafallo made it 2-0 at 2:08 after a Vegas turnover in its own zone. Later, Cole Perfetti pushed it to 3-0 at 4:06. In a span of less than two minutes, a manageable one-goal game became another uphill climb.

Rasmus Andersson said that stretch looked too familiar.

“They get one, they get two, they get three,” Andersson said. “I think that’s been kind of our issue. We don’t stop the bleeding soon enough.”

Bruce Cassidy saw the same thing.

“We had one of those stretches in the second where 1-0 turned into 3-0,” Cassidy said. “And we’ve seen that a lot this year.”

One answer, not enough

Vegas finally broke through on the power play midway through the second.

At 10:29, Andersson scored his 13th of the season with the man advantage. Barbashev and Brett Howden picked up the assists as the Knights cut the deficit to 3-1.

That goal gave Vegas a little life, and it also ended a long scoring drought. Still, the bigger issue remained. The Golden Knights could not build enough off it.

Cassidy said the problem continues to be execution from the group Vegas leans on most.

“They’ve struggled 5-on-5 and the power play for a while now,” Cassidy said. “So they’ve just got to get their confidence back to make plays and finish some plays.”

Colton Sissons said the room knows it has to stick together through it.

“Guys haven’t been scoring as much as they’d like,” Sissons said. “So we’ve just got to find a way to have some confidence and some swagger.”

Third-period chance slips away

Vegas had a chance to make it a one-goal game in the third, but it never found the second goal.

The Knights got a power play at 12:56 after Elias Salomonsson was called for cross-checking. Then they got another at 15:42 when Dylan Samberg took a high-sticking penalty. Mitch Marner, Hertl, Dorofeyev, Stone and Shea Theodore all had looks during those chances, but Hellebuyck held up.

That was the difference again. Vegas generated enough to stay in the game, but not enough to flip it.

Cassidy did not put this loss on the goaltending.

“Tonight wasn’t a night about the goaltender,” Cassidy said. “It was about our lack of execution offensively.”

With Adin Hill pulled late for the extra attacker, Scheifele scored the empty-netter at 18:42 of the third to seal it.

Vegas has now dropped another game despite owning the shot edge. The standings will not care how it looked. The Golden Knights created enough to hang around, but once again they spent too much of the night chasing and not enough of it finishing.

Up next

The Golden Knights return home for a four-game homestand with 10 games left in the regular season. Vegas opens that stretch Thursday against Edmonton at T-Mobile Arena, then sees the Oilers again later in the final 10 games. Puck drop at the Fortress is set for 6:30 p.m. PT.

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