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With a four-game losing streak fresh on the minds of the Vegas Golden Knights, the group righted the ship and got back in the win column with a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings inside the confines of T-Mobile Arena.
This was the first game back home for Vegas off a 4-game road trip in which the team failed to record a point in any of the four games. The Golden Knights ran their record to 22-10-5 on the season.
“We got back to our identity of being hard to play against,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We didn’t give them many easy chances. A lot of pucks have been going in our net the last two or three weeks and I think that’s the biggest reason we got into this. We were out-scoring it some nights and not others. Tonight we didn’t put ourselves in a position where we had to outscore the goals against.”
With this win and the Vancouver Canucks losing to the Philadelphia Flyers, Vegas now are locked into a tie atop the Pacific Division Standings with the Canucks, each with 49 points.
Coming into Thursday’s game, Vegas was on a four-game losing streak while the Kings came in winners in four of their last five contests.
Next up for the Knights will be a New Year's Day showdown in the Winter Classic as the team will move from one T-Mobile venue to another at T-Mobile Park to play the Seattle Kraken. Puck drop is set for 12 p.m. and can be seen nationally on TNT.
This will be the first Winter Classic for both teams but second game in team history that has been hosted outdoors for the Golden Knights. The last time Vegas played outdoors was back on February 20, 2021 when they faced off with the Colorado Avalanche in Lake Tahoe.
“It’s something you dream of as a kid,” goaltender Logan Thompson said. “I grew up playing hockey outside so being able to do that in the NHL and grew up watching it so being able to play in that game is going to be fun.”
Both teams looked to establish a presence on offense, generating chances in close and putting pressure on Thompson and opposing goalie Cam Talbot to come up with key saves for their clubs.
This was the second straight game that Thompson started in net after giving up five goals to Anaheim Wednesday night.
Cassidy has shown the tendency to split goaltending duties up amongst the available group on back-to-back situations but decided to stick with Thompson for Thursday’s game.
Thompson finished the game with 32 saves on 34 shots faced for a final save percentage of .941 in the win.
LA had a late push in the closing minutes of the game after left-winger Trevor Moore cut the Kings deficit from two goals down to one with 1:59 to go. After Moore’s goal, Thompson was met with a multitude of shots from the Kings as they looked to score one more to tie the game.
Moore’s goal came in a 6-on-5 scenario where LA pulled Talbot to the bench in favor of the extra skater on the ice. LA went back to the 6-on-5 to close the game, allowing them to generate quality chances on Thompson.
“Mentally this was the toughest month of my NHL career,” Thompson said. “I think just taking a step back and just being grateful to be in the NHL. I don’t know how long I’m going to be in the NHL or how long I’ll be a Vegas Golden Knight but just trying to come to the rink everyday with a smile on my face and working hard is the mindset I want to have.”
Cassidy decided to make some line changes coming into Thursday’s game, having center William Karlsson, right-winger Jonathan Marchessault, and left-winger Paul Cotter on the second line. This group scored the game-winning goal off the stick of Karlsson after receiving a pass in the slot from Cotter.
“We know how good of a team we are,” Cotter said. “We had a great start to the season and we had a little stretch [where] we didn’t like there obviously but we know how good we are. We just need to get back to the way we know we can play. I think we just need to hammer down the details and make sure we’re playing our game. Same mood as always.”