The Vegas Golden Knights were held off the scoresheet for the first time this season, falling 3-0 to the Toronto Maple Leafs Wednesday night at Scotiabank Arena.
Cal Burke made his Golden Knights debut on the fourth line after he and Mason Morelli were called up earlier in the day. Burke finished the game with two shots and a minus-one rating in 9:39.
It was the first night of a back-to-back set in Ontario and the first of five games on Vegas’ longest road trip of the season. Vegas is now 11-6-2 on the year after dropping two straight.
The Golden Knights had an early power play and held Toronto without a shot for the first eight minutes of the period. However, it was the Maple Leafs who opened the scoring. Toronto took a 1-0 lead at 8:53 on Fraser Minten’s first career NHL goal off a feed from William Nylander from behind the goal line.
Adin Hill made a few key stops to keep Vegas within one after one.
Shea Theodore had been the recipient of a nasty hit that sent him face-first into the boards, but he was back on the bench at the start of the middle frame, which proved to be a scoreless one.
That being said, it wasn’t without incident.
There was another questionable hit in the second, as Zach Whitecloud laid out Matthew Knies with what looked like shoulder-to-head contact.
It was initially ruled a major; after review, the Golden Knights came away with a power play, as Whitecloud was assessed just two minutes for roughing while Toronto’s Simon Benoit got four.
Knies did not return.
Scrums continued to break out as additional altercations unfolded on the ice, including Oliver Ekman-Larsson going after Brett Howden and John Tavares tackling Alexander Holtz.
Conor Timmins later threw Ivan Barbashev, resulting in another Vegas power play. However, the Golden Knights were unable to convert.
That was the story of the second period, as Vegas outshot Toronto 16-6 but couldn’t get one past Joseph Woll, keeping the deficit at one through 40 minutes.
In the final frame, Whitecloud gave the Maple Leafs their first power play of the game after getting whistled for hooking, which led to a crazy sequence of back-and-forth action.
First, Tavares hit the post, then Hill made an outstanding stop on Nylander before Brayden McNabb came up with a huge shot block. That sent the Golden Knights on a shorthanded 2-on-1 break, but Vegas wasn’t able to get a shot off. Tavares then set up a 2-on-1 for Mitch Marner and Nylander going the other way.
This time, Nylander took his time and picked his spot, beating Hill to double Toronto’s lead just over three minutes into the third.
Hill came up with a few more key stops, and he even pulled out a two-pad stack in a period that saw the home team outshoot the visitors 13-5.
The Golden Knights pulled the goalie with 3:32 remaining, but the Maple Leafs quickly iced the 3-0 decision on Pontus Holmberg’s empty-netter.
In the end, the Golden Knights recorded plenty of shots — leading 31-26 in the final tally — but were unable to get to the middle of the ice to generate secondary chances and high-danger opportunities. Toronto also blocked another 25 bids.
Holl played very well, and Toronto’s defensive structure held strong. Additionally, the Maple Leafs’ pressure on the penalty kill held the league’s second-best power play off the board, as Vegas went 0-3 on the night.
The fact that the Golden Knights couldn’t knot up the game on either power play in the second period hurt them, and then the overly aggressive penalty kill burned them on Nylander’s insurance tally.
Also, it was another slow start for the Golden Knights, who gave up the first goal for the fifth consecutive game. The Golden Knights have been chasing far too often. On top of that, Vegas didn’t do nearly enough in the third to mount any sort of comeback.
“Third period was uncharacteristic of us,” Bruce Cassidy said. “Didn’t do much right and ended up paying the price.” He went on to say that Vegas “lost a lot of races and battles” and got “outworked.”
But the turning point in the game came in the wild see-saw action on Toronto’s early power play in the third. The Golden Knights had a failed odd-man rush at one end and then got exposed on Toronto’s 2-on-1 at the other.
Cassidy was forced to throw three lines in the blender mid-game. Once again, that meant Holtz was taken off William Karlsson’s line, which has become a trend. Barbashev played well with Karlsson; considering the top line has struggled to overcome matchup limitations on the road, it will be interesting to see if that combination sticks.
The Golden Knights are back in action tomorrow night against the Ottawa Senators as the five-game road trip continues. Ilya Samsonov is expected to be back between the pipes. Mark Stone is technically eligible to return from injured reserve at any time, and Victor Olofsson should be back at some point during the road trip after serving his conditioning stint in Henderson.
The Golden Knights are hoping the league will not take another look at the Whitecloud hit, especially since Ben Hutton was put on long-term injured reserve and Nicolas Hague remains out (though he’s practicing in a red non-contact sweater). Fortunately for Vegas, Theodore was able to return to the game after taking that hit late in the first.
