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Despite the hot start at home to start the season, the Vegas Golden Knights are still winless away from The Fortress.
Vegas was beaten by Los Angeles, 6-3, Wednesday, Oct. 30 from the Crypto.com Arena in a battle of the top two teams in the Pacific Division. Now, the team is 0-3-1 on the road this season despite being undefeated at home.
The Golden Knights beat the Kings, 6-1, from the T-Mobile Arena a little over a week ago.
“We didn’t bring the mentality we have at home,” forward Alexander Holtz said. “That’s not good on us.”
The loss snaps a four-game win streak for Vegas as the team falls to 7-3-1 on the year. It’s accumulated 15 points so far which is still good for the top position in the division standings. Los Angeles is now just a point behind with a 6-3-2 overall record.
In a one-off home game, the Knights will return home for its first-ever meeting with the newly-rebranded Utah Hockey Club. That game is set for Saturday, Nov. 2 from the T-Mobile Arena. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m.
“You definitely want to be a good road team as well,” captain Mark Stone said. “You can’t just rely on trying to win 41 home games I guess. It’s something we need to get better at, we’re giving up far too much on the road.”
After scoring first in the last two contests, Vegas endured an uphill battle from the beginning of its most recent game. With just over six minutes left in the first period, Los Angeles lit the lamp to take a 1-0 lead. Forty-two seconds later, another one would sneak past VGK goalie Ilya Samsonov.
Following the first 20 minutes of play, the Knights found themselves in a 2-0 hole. In the team’s first meeting of the season against the Kings, it led 3-0 after the first period.
By midway through the second, Vegas found itself in its largest hole of the season at 3-0. Soon after, it’d be 4-0 on the heels of another goal 44 seconds after the home team’s first of the second period.
To that point, Samsonov had 11 saves versus four goals allowed.
“Probably the middle of the ice,” Stone said as to where the issues came from. “They scored their second goal getting to the middle, scored their third goal getting to the middle.”
LA was successful on its lone power play opportunity of the night. Samsonov eventually closed the night with 21 saves for a final save percentage of .778.
He is now 0-1-0 on the road with nearly five goals allowed versus a perfect 3-0-0 record at The Fortress coupled with 1.67 goals given up per home start.
The Golden Knights didn’t score their first goal of the game until more than three quarters of the way through the second period. It’s the latest the team has scored into a game this season.
Left-wing Tanner Pearson found the net for the third time this season off assists from Holtz and fellow teammate William Karlsson. The latter has now recorded at least one point in all three games played this season.
Forward Pavel Dorofeyev scored in the third period behind two Los Angeles penalties within a 60-second span. As a team, Vegas went 1-for-3 on the power play in the loss.
It was the first of two final period goals for Dorofeyev. He has racked up five points over the last three games and has a total of nine on the season. His nine points are good for sixth on the team.
“He’s good,” Stone said. “You look at the top of our lineup, a lot of minuses trickling in our top defensemen and top forwards. I thought the other guys kind of carried the play for us to be honest with you […] I guess you can bring a bright spot in a pretty poor game by us and I guess he’s one of them.”
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