Coyotes come up short in 4-1 loss to Golden Knights

In Las Vegas, Logan Thompson made 25 saves and the Golden Knights downed the Arizona Coyotes, 4-1, on Thursday night.

“For the most part, we played a good hockey game. You got to play the game in front of you,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “In the second period, we got sucked into that game a little bit and got away from what we needed to do for a little bit. … I was glad to see the guys get it back. Then we started executing better. There was a pocket of execution in the second period that we need to learn from, and we did.”

The win ended a two-game skid for Vegas.

Vegas improved to 14-4-0.

Alex Pietrangelo had a goal and three points on the night.

“Sometimes you kind of get lucky. Sometimes you go through spells when you get nothing,” Pietrangelo said. “Sometimes you get the bounces.”

Clayton Keller was the lone striker for the Coyotes.

“We look at our last couple of games where we play really well for a long time, but we cannot close the deal or get the big goal,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “”We missed Grade A opportunities. We had other plays where we needed to be quicker with our shot to get the goalie in motion, stuff like that. There’s a lot of work to do offensively for us.”

Phil Kessel played in his 1,000th consecutive game.

“It was neat,” Kessel said. “Obviously, 1,000 games in a row is a lot. I don’t know how I did it, but it’s a good thing.”

Pietrangelo scored in the middle frame to give the Knights a 1-0 lead, William Carrier pushed the lead to 2-0, 31 seconds into the third period.

“We knew that the next goal was going to be real important,” Carrier said. “We’re trying to get something going. … Obviously, it was a big goal. Big play by [Keegan Kolesar] in front, gave me a little bit of room and I took the room.”

With six minutes gone in the third, Mark Stone extended the lead to 3-0.