Following the Vegas Golden Knights’ lifeless 4-0 loss at home to the Winnipeg Jets, head coach Bruce Cassidy met with the media.
“Tonight wasn’t good enough,” said Cassidy.
On Thursday, the Golden Knights were a step behind the Jets all night. They lost puck battles and battles in front of the net.
“I’m concerned. This isn’t a one-off,” Cassidy admitted. “We should be prepared to play. We talked about [Tuesday’s game against] Edmonton not being a full 60– a good 45, I would say. So, we should’ve responded well… We didn’t. Our pace wasn’t good enough. We didn’t execute well enough.”
In the first period, the Jets outshot the Golden Knights 11-5 and lead high-danger scoring chances 7-1. Try as they might, the Golden Knights never recovered from their poor start. Despite outshooting the Jets 14-3 in the third period, the Golden Knights never managed to score. It was all too little, too late. And it was much, much too little.
“We’re trying to make plays no matter what,” Cassidy finished. “That’s where I think our problem is right now– understanding when the plays are there to be made, and when you’ve got to old-fashioned chip it behind them and force turnovers… We didn’t want to do it that way early. I think we had nine giveaways in the first period; I’d say all nine were in the first ten minutes.”
Before this two-game skid, the Golden Knights won six in a row. However, in their last seven games against playoff-bound Western Conference teams, they have a record of 1-5-1.
“It’s a problem,” said Cassidy. “It’s Winnipeg now, Edmonton [Tuesday], LA came in here. These are the teams we’ve got to go through. That’s the concern that we’ll have to address with the group– and did, after the game. I rarely talk to the guys after the game; it’s an emotional moment. This is just an honest assessment of where we are with the Western Conference… We’ve got to get that part of our game in order, the style of play we need to play, to excel if we want to get to where we want to go.”
