Recap: It was Pete DeBoer’s first game in Vegas as the Golden Knights head coach. His team came out strong for him in the first. Max Pacioretty scored his 24th of the season, and Jon Merrill added his second for 2-0 edge. Carolina would get one on the board late in the period on a fluky goal passed Marc-Andre Fleury making it 2-1 Vegas.
Shea Theodore gave Vegas a two goal lead :59 seconds in to the 2nd period. The Golden Knights would hold a 3-1 lead for the rest of the 2nd period.
Sebastian Aho scored quickly to start the 3rd period getting his team within one. Chandler Stephenson gave his team a two goal lead again with a shorthanded tally. Carolina’s Erik Haula scored a power play goal two minutes later making it 4-3 Vegas. The Hurricanes wouldn’t go away and tied it up 4-4 halfway through the final period. Carolina would take the 5-4 lead six minutes later. However, Cody Eakin tied the game at six late in the period.
A wild OT period had the Hurricanes hitting multiple posts but the Golden Knights survived. In shootout, Vegas went 0 for 2 while Carolina went 2 for 3.
Vegas’ record drops to 28-21-8 sitting on 64 points on the season. Next up for the Golden Knights is the Minnesota Wild. The team will travel to play the Wild on Tuesday night. Game starts at 5P. (Recap by Jason)
Analysis: It was a game that had a bit of everything. Vegas jumped out to a solid 2-0 lead playing well but a weird goal cost them one near the end of the period. The 2nd was somewhat back and forth but the Golden Knights did well to extend the lead and keep the Canes at bay. That would not be the case in the 3rd as a rash of penalties helped Carolina take the game over and actually take a late lead. Eakin tied it due to some poor goaltending (which was a problem on both ends tonight) and then overtime and shootout weren’t pretty for VGK. (Analysis by Ken)
Upcoming stories from the Vegas Golden Knights vs Carolina Hurricanes at T-Mobile Arena
- Steve Carp’s Sunday column on Nate Schmidt’s resurgence
- Photo gallery from the game
Ken’s Three VGK Stars
*** Nic Roy
** Chandler Stephenson
* Shea Theodore
DeBoer has made it clear they need to be better in OT and SO. They were not tonight. Cost them a point.
— SinBin.vegas (@SinBinVegas) February 9, 2020
Great tribute video to Erik Haula. pic.twitter.com/oHS4yLwaOI
— SinBin.vegas (@SinBinVegas) February 9, 2020
Happy Year of the Rat! pic.twitter.com/YHN7YIFPB6
— SinBin.vegas (@SinBinVegas) February 9, 2020
Turk Broda
the goaltending on this team is so mediocre, so deflating, so demoralizing.
Fleury is too small, and goes down on every shot and gives up easy goals over his glove and his shoulder. He is so small that he cannot see around the traffic either.
it is pathetic that they cannot even hold big leads at home anymore, even when they play well for most of the game.
the save % for Vgk is around .900
that is about 20 points below where it should be on a good team.
they will go nowhere this season with these 2 netminders. period.
Turk Broda
folks, veteran goalies are being phased out or eased out of their starting jobs all over the NHL.
cases in point—–
Henrik Lundqvist in NYR, Holtby in Wash, Rinne in Nash, Crawford in Chi, Murray in Pitt, Jones in SJ, Quick in LA, etc etc
Goaltending is a “what have you done lately”, results oriented, winning oriented business. Sympathy does not buy you playoff spots or Cups.
Just as high profile coaches like Gallant, Babcock, Laviolette, Quenneville etc have all gotten a pink slip in recent seasons, inconsistent goaltending was the underlying reason why they got canned. As Eddie O says, “show me a good goalie, and I’ll show you a good coach”……their fates are intertwined.
Turk Broda
oh, and of course I should have mentioned that Fleury himself was phased out in Pitt, and Murray won 2 cups with MAF sitting on the bench. So, it is not an unfamiliar position for Fleury.
However, Subban is NOT the answer. Not after his pathetic performance at home last month in which he embarrassed himself and the team. He is no more than a .500 goalie on a good team. win 1 , lose 1.
3.04 GAA and .897 save % = totally unacceptable
Sean Doherty
Pull Fleury, use Subban!
Why won’t VGK use Subban (backup goalie), overusing Fleury and hitting the team. I am Fleury’s BIGGEST FAN, but VGK can’t win without SUBBAN to take some of the load!
Sean Doherty
Overusing Fleury is hurting the team, use Subban every 2-3 games at least. How can Fleury be fresh if he is overused?
Subban can’t be ready if he rarely (if ever) is played. Is this a problem? Use everybody (Fleury AND Subban) or the team will keep losing!!!
Hdbiker7851
No excuses they forgot the game is 60 minutes. To give up that number of goals is unacceptable. What is sad you can see it coming.
Sean Doherty
Overusing Fleury is hurting the team, use Subban every 2-3 games at least. How can Fleury be fresh if he is overused?
Subban can’t be ready if he rarely (if ever) is played. Is this a problem? Use everybody (Fleury AND Subban) or the team will keep losing!!!
Mike G
Was at the game tonight. The crowd and the atmosphere was the best it’s been all year. Goaltending HAS to be better. That flukey goal at the end of the first period ended up costing us the game. Fleury just isn’t right. Even when he makes a save it seems like he’s not tracking it well. Also making more bad decisions with puck handling behind the net than I ever seen
Mark
We do need to use Subban more, keep him sharp. Fluery is a tremendous talent, works hard, is loved by teammates. He’s 35, not 106, get it? He’s got game, that was a shooting gallery last night, what about our defense? Not one word here about that. Carrier’s assist last night was world class, he needs more ice time, IMOP, he’s 24 and a force. Eakin is Eakin again, we need him. We will get Glass and Karlsson back, then make a run, tighten up our defense. Roy stays, he’s fast and strong. Whitecloud, is a talent too, smart, irrespective of that double minor. Stephenson is a blur, he can flat out fly !! Crunch time is upon us !!
Hdbiker7851
They are slow to learn they simply can’t and not good enough to sit on a lead. They win when aggressive and stay with it 60 minutes. Fluery has not been the same since the passing of his dad. Not sure at his age he can regain the same prior performance. Everyone loves the guy not unlike the Turk situation so you know where that leads. They need to alternate goalies probably every other game unfortunately one isn’t any better than the other most of the time. They can win with both if the entire team shows up otherwise it’s all over sad to say.
Tim
It’s Murphy’s Law if it can go wrong it will. Yesterday’s was gut wrenching same ole same ole when were down we can’t come back and when were up no lead is safe. Fluery is toast which equates to the team is toast. We all love him but either because of age or his fathers death he’s giving up mucho goals. The Pacific is weak and we may or not make the playoffs but were not built for a run. They ran out of gas in the third period yesterday and that’s the bottom line. We take way to many penalties and on the flip side our power play hasn’t worked very well. Now it’s off to play the Wild who we always have had problems with and then we come home to play the Capitals, Blues, and Lightning good luck with that lineup. Be it Gallant or now DeBour there’s always an excuse we’ve been on the road to long well it was a long trip home it’s hard to adjust, well at least we got a point. Here’s the bottom line in any sport you make your own luck all this well we didn’t have puck luck is nonsense in the Tampa game Patch had a wide open first period chance and blew it that’s not puck luck that’s a choke. Anyway a lot of good things happening with the organization so I’m still excited but the Knights just don’t have the chemistry this year.
Vgk4life
Well it sure is a good thing we fired a fan favorite in Gallant. We’ve sure turned things around thanks to our GM. It’s not like the players on the ice were ones he had signed……