The Vegas Golden Knights may be missing home, but they’ve been doing well on their five-game road trip, which will end against the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday night in Denver.
Vegas lost the first game of the trip but has won the next three, including a 5-4 shootout win against the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday. The Golden Knights were down 3-0 in the second period but came back to tie it at 4-4 with 8:05 left in regulation before winning in the shootout.
“At the end of the day, it’s 3-0, and it’s easy to sort of say, ‘Let’s move on and get ready for the next one,’” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “The guys dug in. I didn’t think we were far behind with our ability to catch up. We have goal-scorers in the room. … It was a game we were way too loose to expect to win anything playing like that. Some nights over the course of 82, those happen. We were able to come out on the right side.”
Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev each had a goal and an assist for Vegas, who played without William Karlsson (personal reasons) and Zach Whitecloud, who is day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
Despite missing captain Mark Stone due to a lower-body injury, the Golden Knights have won five of their last seven games. Stone, who was placed on injured reserve last week, has been out for the last nine games.
Vegas has also gotten help from winger Callahan Burke, who was called up before the 3-0 loss to Toronto. Burke, 27, had played only three NHL games before this recall, two of them with Colorado last season. He has one goal and is averaging 11:31 of ice time in four games this season.
The Avalanche had a chance for a perfect road trip but suffered a big loss to Tampa Bay on Monday night. Colorado had won six of seven, including the first three on the road, before losing 8-2 to the Lightning.
“I thought we had a great road trip. It just sucks it ended like this,” Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon said. “Everything went in and we couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
Goaltending was an issue again. Justus Annunen started the game but was pulled after giving up three quick goals. He returned to start the third period but allowed two more goals on the first two shots he faced.
In the middle, Alexandar Georgiev didn’t perform much better and smashed his stick after allowing a goal.
“Listen, they’re frustrated,” coach Jared Bednar said. “Probably upset with themselves, one another, everyone. I don’t blame them for having emotion and not liking the way the game was going.”
Georgiev, who has been solid in net after a rough start to the season, will likely start against Vegas. The Golden Knights defeated Georgiev and the Avalanche 8-4 in their season opener.
Colorado had been playing well before the Tampa loss, partly because the team got healthier. Valeri Nichushkin (suspension), Jonathan Drouin (upper body), and Miles Wood (upper body) returned to strengthen the first line.
Even without MacKinnon, their top scorer (35 points), Colorado had been winning. MacKinnon has only two assists in the last five games after recording 15 assists in the previous seven.
