Among the worst losses of the season, the Vegas Golden Knights will host the St. Louis Blues at the Martin Luther King Jr. game. Day on Monday in Las Vegas.
This is the first home-and-home game between these two teams, which will be played again on Thursday in St.
Vegas, tied with the Edmonton Oilers for first place in the Pacific Division with 61 points, has lost three games in a row, matching its longest streak of the season. The Golden Knights have also dropped five of their last six games, the team’s worst streak of six games over 46 contests.
“It’s not a very good thing, is it?” captain Mark Stone said after Saturday’s 5-3 loss at Chicago, which ended the road trip at 0-3. “Good thing they don’t do anything. Mistakes can be prevented by us.”
The loss to the Blackhawks, who have the fewest points in the NHL, was arguably the low point of Vegas’ season. The Golden Knights also fell 3-2 at Carolina on Friday after opening the road trip with a 5-3 loss at Nashville on Tuesday.
“A little difficulty is good this time of year, but it’s only good if you try to get out of it,” Stone said. “We have to come home and get back on the drawing board and be ready to fight and find a way to win the game.”
Vegas played catch-up several times during his trip. The Golden Knights fell behind Nashville 4-0 and trailed Chicago 3-1 after the Blackhawks scored three goals in a 3:42 span late in the first half.
“That’s an issue for us right now,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Our disadvantage is, we don’t put out the fire and stop the damage. We did a better job of that earlier in the year.”
St. Louis snapped a two-game winning streak with a 4-2 loss against Utah on Saturday in Salt Lake City.
The Blues, who are in fifth place in the Central Division and three points behind second-place Calgary in the Western Conference, have not won three games in a row this season.
The coach of St. Louis Jim Montgomery raised eyebrows in the Utah loss when he benched his top line of Robert Thomas, Pavel Buchnevich and Jake Neighbors for the final half of the opening period after Utah built a 3-1 lead with three goals over a 4 1/2-minute span. span.
“They were minus-2,” Montgomery said. “I was going with the players who I thought were trying to do that.”
When asked about being benched, Thomas said, “Our line can’t score on it. Plain and simple. That’s all.
“We’ve got to get better, we need to be consistent. Whoever’s going to play. That’s the message (Montgomery) sent. We got two points so we shouldn’t have been out.”
Now the Blues will try to face a Golden Knights team that has compiled a 23-5-2 record against Western Conference foes.
“We have a tough schedule coming up,” said Thomas. “We’ve got them twice in a row, home and away, so it’s a big test for us. They’re obviously a big team, and we have to find a way to start winning games.”
Monday is the second meeting between these two teams. Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev had a goal and an assist as Vegas won the opener, 4-3, on Oct. 11 in Las Vegas.
–Field Level Media