VGK gives up 5 unanswered in loss to Pittsburgh

Most Vegas Golden Knight fans thought their team was well on their way to an easy win following a 3-0 lead at the first intermission.

However, those were the only three goals scored by the Knights Monday, Jan. 17 in a 5-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins from the T-Mobile Arena.

As of right now, the Vegas Golden Knights now sit in the fourth spot of the Western Conference standings and are only up by four points on the eighth place San Jose Sharks.

You can slice it however you want to. The fact of the matter is that this Vegas Golden Knights team has now lost five of their last six games including the last three in a row at T-Mobile Arena.

The next game for the Vegas Golden Knights is Thursday, Jan. 20 at 7 p.m. against the Montreal Canadiens inside T-Mobile Arena.

The game can be seen on AT&T Sportsnet in Las Vegas. Fans can also find ticket information at AXS.com.

Pittsburgh started their comeback in the second period when they grabbed two goals in the period to cut the deficit down to 3-2 by the time the second intermission rolled around.

The Penguins were far from over when it came to scoring as they proceeded to snatch the lead away from Vegas within the first three minutes of the 3rd period when they scored another pair of goals to go ahead 4-3 after originally being down 3-0 just over a period ago. Jason Zucker was a big reason for the Penguins comeback as he chipped in two goals of his own including the game-tying goal for Pittsburgh.

As you can imagine, this was not the most ideal of nights for Golden Knights goaltender Robin Lehner who finished the night with 32 saves on 36 shot attempts for a save percentage of .889.

The three goalscorers for the Golden Knights in this one include Chandler Stephenson who recorded his 11th goal of the year, Evgenii Dadonov who cracked double digits with his 10th goal of the season, and Nicolas Roy who scored his 8th goal this season via the power play late in the first period.

When asked where he felt the game started slipping away from them, VGK head coach Pete Deboer said, “The first five minutes of the second period we take two penalties which immediately gives them momentum and puts us on our heels.”

Golden Knights Captain Mark Stone echoed the same message from DeBoer saying they started slow in the second period and attributed taking those two early penalties as part of the slow start to the second period.

Lehner gave Pittsburgh a bunch of credit saying, “Pittsburgh has been one of the best teams. They came out really hard in the second.”