The Vegas Golden Knights have played nine games since January 9th and have won just two.
Things haven’t been all bad for the Golden Knights. The powerplay is firing at 41.7%, which is 2nd in the league. Pavel Dorofeyev has seven goals in nine games. Tomáš Hertl has 12 points in nine games, and Shea Theodore has 11 in nine.
But despite the positives and the silver linings, you can’t argue with the results. The Golden Knights are 2-6-1 over the last nine games, and it’s not too hard to figure out why.
There are other struggles, of course. But during this nine-game cold streak, the Golden Knights have been plagued by four constant issues.
Goaltending Woes
“We’re not getting saves,” said head coach Bruce Cassidy when he met with the media on Tuesday. “We need a little better from the goaltending department.”
It’s hard to place all of the blame on the goaltenders, especially when the team has suffered so many defensive lapses. But Cassidy isn’t wrong. Just one goaltending performance over the past nine games has been above .900.
Adin Hill has started five games over this stretch and has allowed 15 goals. His record is 1-3-1, with an average save percentage of .874. If you factor out the 4-1 Minnesota win, where he recorded a .938 SV%, his save average percentage drops to .863.
Since January 9th, Ilya Samsonov has started four games and has allowed 14 goals. He has a record of 1-3 and a .852 save percentage. Even in his lone win over the St. Louis Blues, when Samsonov made the saves he needed to make, he still only had a .882 save percentage.
Penalty Kill Struggles
Since January 9th, when the losing streak started, the Golden Knights penalty kill is 23rd in the league with a 72.2% success rate. They’ve allowed five power play goals against during that stretch.
While those numbers aren’t atrocious, the penalty kill has struggled with giving opposing teams momentum. In addition to the five goals allowed, the Golden Knights have also given up three goals within a minute of the opposing team’s power play expiring.
Noah Hanifin-Alex Pietrangelo Pairing
First, let’s take a look at the raw stats. Over the last nine games, this Hanifin-Pietrangelo pairing has been on the ice for two goals for and 13 against. If you break them down into individuals, Pietrangelo has been on the ice for seven goals for and 16 against; Hanifin has been on ice for five goals for and 17 against.
Here’s some perspective: in the previous 38 games they’d been together this season, the Hanifin-Pietrangelo pairing had been on ice for 30 goals and 28 against.
But it’s not just the numbers; it’s how they’re getting scored. They’re losing puck battles, they’re losing stick battles, and they’re struggling to box guys out in front of the net.
Lack of Secondary Scoring
Tomáš Hertl, Shea Theodore, Pavel Dorofeyev, Mark Stone, and Jack Eichel are all at least point-per-game players over this nine-game stretch. But that doesn’t matter.
I mean, it does matter. It’s never bad when a team’s best players are at the top of their game. But it’s not enough.
Noah Hanifin has gone pointless through the last nine games. Ivan Barbashev has one assist in his last eight games. Brett Howden has one goal in eight games. William Karlsson is injured now but was held without a point in the seven games he did play.
“No one’s letting us off the hook,” said Jack Eichel. “It’s gotta come from within the group. We know we have it in here… I think we’ve done enough talking about it. It’s been a few weeks that we’ve been struggling. It’s just a commitment to competing, and doing the right things, and the will to win. We know we have it in here. It’s just about grasping it.”
