Golden Knights get back to work following first losing streak

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - The Golden Knights returned to the ice at City National Arena a little more than 12 hours after their second straight loss, falling to rival San Jose 5-2 on Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning, both in the video room and on the ice, was about correcting the mistakes that led Vegas to lose a one-goal game in the third period, propelling San Jose to just their second regular season, regulation win against the Golden Knights.

“We had a good practice today,” explained Golden Knights defenseman Alec Martinez. “You’re not going to win them all, it’s going to happen, but you have to nip this thing in the bud right away and we got a big game tomorrow and opportunity to right the ship a little bit here and confident the guys will do it.”

“Learn from it, it is early,” said Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb. “We know we can be better in the third period to close out a game like that and we should have, but we didn’t. Something you learn from and move on.”

“We went right through some of the areas in the third period we felt weren’t good enough,” said Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy. “We dealt with it and now we had practice to A, execute, get pucks moving, but b, address some of the areas we felt we weren’t good enough in. That’s the plan now, that tomorrow we acknowledge that and get back to playing like we can.”

“To me it’s just correcting some small things, special teams’ battles are always important,” said Cassidy. When we’ve won, we’ve typically been on the right side, protecting the front of the net, three goals net front, that’s something we preach every day, so we got away from that. We talked about that already this morning, got to win the slot battles and start there.”

The Golden Knights say despite the losses, confidence remains high. Vegas still sit first place in the Pacific Division and atop the Western Conference with 26 points through 17 games.

“I just think how tight this group is in the dressing room,” explained Golden Knights goaltender Logan Thompson. “We’re playing for each other here this year and we’re not going to quit on each other. I think that is the mindset going into every game and it’s a veteran group, so I’m confident every game we should be able to get two points, but even if we down, going into the third, we never feel like we’re out of it. We’re going to fight every game until it’s over for those two points and that’s what we’ve been doing every game this year and it’s been working our ways most of the time.”

“We have a very confident group in here and we have a lot of fun, fun on the ice as well, it’s going to help a lot,” smiled Golden Knights forward, William Karlsson. “We’ve been kind of feeling, just keep going.”

The Golden Knights will close out their three-game homestand Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena, playing host to the Arizona Coyotes. Six of the next four opponents for the Golden Knights are against the Pacific Division.

“Our urgency should be higher, simply because we haven’t put points on the board in the last two games. Good teams don’t let those things fester, we addressed some of it today in practice,” said Cassidy. “I thought it was a good, energetic practice, some of the areas we need to get better on. Hopefully, it translates tomorrow, so I’m less concerned with Arizona, I don’t mean that disrespectfully, but we gotta get our own house in order first.”

Copyright 2022 KVVU. All rights reserved.