VGK closes five-game road trip with shootout loss to the Avalanche

The Vegas Golden Knights offense struggled to score in critical moments and suffered a dramatic shootout loss to the Colorado Avalanche.

The Golden Knights lost to the Avalanche, 2-1, Wednesday, Nov. 27, at the Ball Arena.

“There’s always some positives,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We got a point and our goaltender was the biggest reason. We look tired, we’re at the end of a road trip. We are tired […] We’ll probably be tired on Friday.”

It was the second of three meetings between these two teams. Vegas won the first meeting back on Opening Night at the T-Mobile Arena, 8-4. They won’t play each other again until April 8, at the Ball Arena.

Wednesday night’s game was a tough way for the Knights to wrap up their five-game road trip but the silver lining is that they went 3-1-1 on this road trip with seven points collected.

The loss dropped their overall record to 14-6-3 and 6-4-3 on the road for the season.

Despite the loss, the VGK is still sitting three points ahead of the Calgary Flames for first place in the Pacific Division.

After being on the road for the past week and a half, the Golden Knights will finally return home to start a three-game homestand when they play against the Winnipeg Jets on Black Friday. Puck drop is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at The Fortress.

“We’re going to have to create a little more offense obviously,” Cassidy said. “We got some guys out of the lineup, but we need a little more from certain people if we’re going to make it easier on ourselves and that didn’t happen tonight. Hopefully, Friday it will.”

Wednesday’s game was a sloppy one that saw both teams commit 23 giveaways each. Although, Vegas had three takeaways to Colorado’s zero.

“We would like to win every game, but that’s not going to happen, “ Cassidy said. “That’s our plan going in, and tonight we were right there.”

With the game being sloppy, the Knights’ offense couldn’t find their rhythm and failed to score in crucial opportunities for most of the game. Like most of their games on this road trip, VGK went scoreless in the first period.

“Today we weren’t able to make the plays that we typically do,” Cassidy said. “I think we were fatigued and give them some credit for playing good defense.”

Left-wing Pavel Dorofeyev scored their only goal in the second period with assists from center Ivan Barbashev and defenseman Alex Pietrangelo.

Dorofeyev’s game-opening goal was his 12th of the season.

As for Barbashev and Pietrangelo, it was their 15th and 13th assists of the season, respectively.

The Golden Knights then failed to capitalize on a power play opportunity early in the third period that could’ve been a game-winning goal for them.

That proved to be their only power play opportunity. Fortunately, their defense was able to prevent the Avalanche from scoring on their two chances.

“At the end of the day, find a way to get points in this league,” Cassidy said. “It’s November, it’s a busy schedule, we’ll look at it as a successful road trip and keep trying to get better.”

After a scoreless third period and overtime session, Vegas found themselves playing in their second consecutive game that went to a shootout.

After winning their game on Monday, the Knights would not have the same luck in this game.

Dorofeyev, center Jack Eichel, defenseman Shea Theodore, center Nicolas Roy and right-wing Alexander Holtz all missed their shots in the shootouts.

Cup run hero Adin Hill returned to start at goalie for VGK after sitting out Monday’s win over the Philadelphia Flyers.

“I thought overall it was a great trip,” Hill said. “I think we had one period in Toronto and one period here where we didn’t play the way we wanted. That’s the difference in this league.”

Hill had a solid performance for most of Wednesday night’s game before giving up the deciding goals.

“I’m a little disappointed we gave up a goal right after we scored,” Cassidy said. “That’s the shift that’s important to make sure you keep momentum […]Maybe if we would’ve been able to limit that and then build on our lead and extend it, that makes it a little easier on us.”

The man who scored both goals on Hill was Colorado’s Valeri Nichushkin, who tied up the game in the second period before scoring the game-winner in the shootout.

As for Hill, he finished the game with 33 saves on 34 shots for a .971 save percentage. He is now 9-4-1 on the season.

Nichushkin was the obvious choice for Player of the Game with his two goals, which oddly enough were only his second and third goals of the season.

Goaltender Alexandar Georgiev was between the pipes for Colorado. At the final buzzer, he had 18 saves on 19 shots for a save percentage of .947.

“We’ll look at some things and we’ll get ready to go at home,” forward Cole Schwindt said.