VGK loses another ugly game on road in Minnesota to fall behind 2-1 in first round series

The Vegas Golden Knights came out flat and found themselves trailing the entire game again in an ugly loss and now trail in their first round playoff series 2-1.

The Golden Knights were defeated by the Minnesota Wild, 5-2, on Thursday, April 24, at the Xcel Energy Center. That’s two straight losses for Vegas after taking a 1-0 series lead.

“You’re going into the room as a team and you’re like, ‘We’re down 4-1 after that period? Like, what the hell just happened?’” Vegas head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “But that’s hockey some nights. You’ve got to regroup. You create your own breaks. They did.”

After having the third-best record in the NHL and winning the Pacific Division, the Knights now find themselves trailing 2-1 in their first round best-of-seven-game series of the Stanley Cup Playoffs to the Wild.

Now VGK will try to tie up the series against Minnesota in Game 4 on Saturday, April 26. Puck drop is scheduled for 1 p.m. at the Xcel Energy Center.

Despite losing Game 2, the Golden Knights were hoping to carry their late-game comeback attempt momentum from Tuesday over to Thursday night. It didn’t quite work out that way for Vegas as it came out flat and appeared not locked in.

Instead the Wild fed off the energy from their fans and didn’t disappoint them on their way to their wire-to-wire victory.

Just 2:46 into the game, Vegas committed a too-many-men penalty that allowed Minnesota to get a power play and score their first goal. That marked the beginning of a rough night for goaltender Adin Hill, who started his third straight game for VGK.

It wasn’t a good day at the office for Hill and the Golden Knights defense, who just seemed to not be able to stop the Wild and have the puck not bounce their way for most of the game.

After finding themselves down by three goals after the first 40 minutes of the game, Cassidy decided to pull Hill out for the third period.

Hill finished his night with 17 saves on 21 shots on goal for a .810 save percentage. He is now 1-2-0 when on the ice for this postseason.

For the final 20 minutes of the game, backup Akira Schmid was in between the pipes for Vegas.

The Henderson Silver Knights call-up fared a lot better in his first appearance in these playoffs, but the game was already over by the time he was on the ice.

The only goal that Minnesota scored in the third period came when Schmid was on the bench for an empty net.

By the final buzzer, Schmid wrapped up the game with a perfect nine saves on nine shots. When asked about the decision to pull Hill for Schmid, Cassidy said he was, “Just getting Schmid some work.”

Offensively, the Knights just never managed to find their footing or any momentum in Thursday’s road game.

Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo was able to get VGK on the board in the first period with a long slap shot off an assist from defenseman Noah Hanifin.

It was Pietrangelo’s first goal of this series. Hanifin’s assist on the goal increased his postseason total to two assists.

Right-wing Reilly Smith scored the Golden Knights’ only other goal later in the third period with help from center William Karlsson and defenseman Zach Whitecloud.

Smith’s short-handed goal was his first of these playoffs.

Karlsson and Whitecloud’s assists on the goal was also their first assists of this series for both of them.

“It was a back-and-forth game,” Karlsson said. “But at the end of the day, they scored more goals than we did.”

Vegas is struggling to get their offense rolling after posting one of their best regular seasons in franchise history, and it starts with their first line.

Nobody on the Knights’ first line has yet to record a single point in this series and that’s including captain Mark Stone, and centers Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev.

Eichel is coming off a franchise-record 94 points this regular season.

“I thought we had a really good game,” Barbashev said. “But we made some mistakes and lost the game.”

VGK had more hits, won more faceoffs, and mostly controlled the pace and possession throughout Game 3, but it just couldn’t translate to goals and success in another ugly loss for them.

Another huge problem for the Golden Knights is going 0-for-4 on their power play opportunities, while the Wild went 2-for-4 on their chances.

Struggling to score on the power play was an issue for Vegas during the last week of the regular season and it’s continuing here in the playoffs.

The Knights are now facing a must-win situation and will have their back against the wall, while possibly looking at a 3-1 series deficit in Game 4 on the road on Saturday.