On The Strip, the Golden Knights stumbled on Wednesday night in a 4-1 defeat to the visiting Los Angeles Kings.
After a scoreless opening stanza, Adrian Kempe and Trevor Moore struck in the middle frame to give the Kings a 2-0 lead.
“It was the game we thought it would be,” Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said. “I thought early it was a boxing match. Everybody was just taking jabs and waiting for something to give. “[We were] fortunate to score first, and I think that’s always an advantage against this team. And then after that, [we] checked fairly well. When we broke down we had excellent goaltending, and all of that adds up to a chance for success and on the way to a win.”
Cam Talbot made 37 saves in the win.
“He had to clean up some messes when we made mistakes,” McLellan said. “[He was] calm. [He] understands the momentum of a game. He got us some good whistles. Just a very stabilizing factor in the goal right now.”
LA moved to 7-0-0 on the road this season, they 1-2-2 at home.
Kempe scored at 11:03 of the second to give the Kings a 1-0 lead.
Moore hit off the power play with four minutes left in the period for a 2-0 lead.
“We should have been better on the races and battles; that made a difference in the game, particularly on special teams,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “They kept pucks alive on their power play. They won a lot of races to keep it in our end on our power play. That was the difference in the game — special teams’ second effort for L.A. was better than our second effort. [The] 5-on-5 game was fairly even, personally.”
Vegas have lost two straight, and dropped to 11-2-1.
At 2:42 of the third, Pierre-Luc Dubois scored on the power play to push the Kings in front by a 3-0 count.
“I thought we played pretty well for a majority of the game,” said Vegas captain Mark Stone, who had an assist. “We just kind of shut it down a little bit [in the third period], didn’t really have our legs. But adversity doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.”
William Karlsson broke up the shutout bid at 14:33 to get the Golden Knights on the board at 3-1.
Anze Kopitar added an empty-net goal with 12 seconds left on the game clock for the 5-2 final.
For Kopitar, it was his 400th NHL goal.
“I didn’t think it was going to happen tonight, [but] I figured I’d give it a go (at an empty net),” Kopitar said. “Memories like this, you want to be on the winning side of this. I thought we played a solid, solid game tonight. It’s obviously a good feeling to get the two points.”
Adin Hill made 29 saves in the loss.
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