The Vegas Golden Knights remain winless on the road after suffering a 6-3 defeat at the hands of the Los Angeles Kings Wednesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
The loss snapped a four-game winning streak for the Golden Knights, who are 7-0-0 at home but 0-3-1 on the road this year.
The Golden Knights gave up the first four goals of the game and were unable to dig themselves out of that hole.
Warren Foegele opened the scoring at 13:58 of the first period on a gift from Ilya Samsonov.
Adrian Kempe gave the Kings a 2-0 lead just 42 seconds later.
The Kings led 2-0 through 20 minutes, marking the first time this season that Vegas did not score in the first period.
The Kings scored another two goals midway through the middle frame.
Tallies from Alex Laferriere and Anze Kopitar came just 44 seconds apart, giving Los Angeles a commanding 4-0 lead at 10:55 of the period.
The Kopitar goal came off a fantastic spinning play by Brandt Clarke, leaving Samsonov no chance on the backdoor tap-in.
Former Kings forward Tanner Pearson got Vegas on the board four minutes later to make it 4-1 after two. Alexander Holtz extended his point streak to five games with the primary assist on the play after he and William Karlsson forced a turnover on the forecheck.
But the Kings added another two goals less than two minutes apart in the third period.
Kevin Fiala restored the four-goal lead with a power-play strike at 6:23, and Joel Edmundson scored on a shot from the point at 8:03.
Vegas then potted two of its own, both courtesy of Pavel Dorofeyev.
Dorofeyev scored on a 5-on-3 power play and then netted his sixth of the season on a slick backhand with just under three minutes remaining in regulation.
But it was too little, too late for the Golden Knights.
It was a rough night all-around for Vegas.
The Golden Knights had structural problems defensively early, and Samsonov failed to bail them out. That combination proved costly as Los Angeles jumped ahead early. Vegas had cleaned things up in the neutral zone, but things unraveled against the Kings.
It was a particularly rough night for Samsonov, who gave up six goals on 26 shots for a .769 save percentage.
The Golden Knights had chances, but Darcy Kuemper made a number of excellent saves, including on Brett Howden, Ivan Barbashev and Jack Eichel.
This performance wasn’t reminiscent of the way the Golden Knights have played in recent games, but life on the road continues to be an issue. That’s something Vegas will have to figure out.
The Golden Knights did avoid disaster, as Tomas Hertl took a big hit up high but was back on the bench in the third period. It’s unclear why he was on the ice given the score, but he’ll have several days to rest before Vegas is back in action Saturday at home against Utah.
