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The Vegas Golden Knights were back in action for the first of a two-game west coast road trip that started in Anaheim.
Vegas dropped the first game of this two-game trip with a 6-5 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday, Dec. 1.
The loss marked the tenth loss on the year for VGK while it was win number 13 for the Ducks.
“Far from good enough, myself included,” goaltender Robin Lehner said. “That’s not Vegas hockey. We gotta find our way back to play our type of hockey.”
The Golden Knights are back in action on Friday, Dec. 3rd at 6:30 p.m. PST against the Arizona Coyotes to finish up this two-game road trip.
The game can be seen on AT&T Sportsnet.
Head coach Pete DeBoer said, “At the end of the night, when you score 4 or 5 goals, you should win.”
The first period was a low-scoring defensive showdown that didn’t see any goals scored through the first 20 minutes of action.
If the first period was a low-scoring, defensive period, the second period was the exact opposite.
Anaheim got the scoring going nearly five minutes into the second when center Troy Terry scored his 15th goal of the season to break the 0-0 tie and put the Ducks up 1-0.
A little over two minutes later, center Rickard Rakell added to the Anaheim total by scoring his seventh goal this year to extend the lead out to 2-0.
It wouldn’t take Vegas long to find an answer as only two minutes after that second Anaheim goal, left-wing William Carrier found the back of the net for the third time on the season, cutting the deficit in half.
The Ducks delivered two more gut punches as they put two more goals in the period off the sticks of defensemen Josh Manson and Hampus Lindholm who picked up their second and third goals of the season respectively.
Facing a 4-1 deficit, a shorthanded Knights team cut back into the lead with 20 seconds left in the second period when defenseman Zach Whitecloud scored his third of the year to make it a 4-2 game heading into the second intermission.
With the momentum of the Whitecloud goal heading into the third, Vegas was able to carry that momentum when center Mattias Janmark scored the second shorthanded goal for Vegas only two minutes into the period to make it a 4-3 game and give the Knights some new life.
Anaheim responded five minutes later when defenseman Jamie Drysdale scored to regain a two-goal lead for the Ducks.
Vegas was able to execute the power play in the third period which had previously been a struggle for the team when left-wing Max Pacioretty lit up the lamp halfway through the period to make the score 5-4 in favor of Anaheim.
Center Isac Lundestrom put the insurance goal in on the empty netter with 1:04 left in the game to make it a 6-4 game.
Right-wing Reilly Smith broke through into double digit scoring for the season when he got a late goal for the Knights with 29 seconds left in the game.