(Photo Credit: @GoldenKnights on X/Twitter)
Saturday night, the Golden Knights did about as well as you can ask when taking on the best team in the NHL, and a team that may end up with the best record in the history of the NHL, without three key skaters and a starting goalie. They held multi-goal leads on two separate occasions, led the game with less than five minutes to go, and then had a chance in the situation Colorado is worst, a shootout.
In the end, it just wasn’t to be, and thus Vegas fall into a category with just about everyone in the league, knowing they can’t quite yet measure up with the Avalanche.
Everyone is in agreement that Colorado is the class of the league right now. How far are we behind on that? That’s a tough one to tell because of these overtime losses, if you just have a normal overtime (record), you’re probably there behind them with Dallas and Minnesota. That’s the part that’s tricky to evaluate in terms of the wins. We haven’t gotten our share for whatever reason and I think it’s really skewed what we look like. -Bruce Cassidy
The Golden Knights have now lost 11 games in overtime or shootout and hold a record of 4-11 when the game extends beyond regulation. As Cassidy said, it lends to quite a bit of confusion about where this version of the Golden Knights actually stand in comparison to the league.
They’re 5th in the league in points percentage while 21st in wins. The 45 points have them in 7th overall and atop the Pacific Division, but they are outside of the top 10 in both goals scored and goals allowed.
So, why aren’t they good in overtime? The head coach weighed in yesterday.
To be quite honest, if you look at the big picture, I don’t think we’ve played very smart in overtime in terms of puck management, knowing when to attack and when not to. That’s why we’ve scored less in overtime because we have the puck a lot less and then we aren’t making good decisions with it, or picking the right time to attack. -Cassidy
As for shootout, he’s a bit more laissez-faire. Cassidy said in a skills competition, he doesn’t feel comfortable overloading the shooters with added information. He believes in the scoring talent on the roster so it’s better to stay out of their heads and let the talent take over. Admittedly, to this point, it has not been successful as the Golden Knights are 1-4 in shootout this year.
Oddly enough, extending games beyond regulation is one of the biggest reasons why the Golden Knights sit comfortably inside the playoff picture and have for most of the year. Yet, avoiding it is probably the best solution to making the team look more like the record says.
