Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024 | 2 a.m.
The road has been unforgiving for the Vegas Golden Knights.
In addition to limited practice time — and the time they do get comes on game days — the Golden Knights are without Mark Stone (lower body), Alex Pietrangelo (upper body), Zach Whitecloud (upper body) and William Karlsson (personal).
The scars began to show in the Golden Knights’ fourth straight road game against the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday. They were outshot 36-30, including a shotless five-minute overtime.
Vegas took six minutes in penalties to the Flyers’ two and fell into an early 3-0 hole.
Off of 31 saves from Ilya Samsonov and a resilient offensive effort, the Golden Knights escaped Philly with a 5-4 win in a shootout, but flaws were abundant.
“It was a game that we just were way too loose if we expected to win anything playing like that,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “There are some nights during the year, through the course of 82 games, where those happen. We were able to come out on the right side of it.”
Cassidy credits the victory to the resiliency and depth of the players, who keep fighting and finding ways to win. The circumstances for practicing haven’t been great for prepping for games and getting injured players back into a regular pace.
“The practice time has to come on game days,” Cassidy said. “You can’t empty your tank at 11 in the morning when you play at seven at night. It’s just a tough time to get your game in order and practice those things.”
“Give credit to our guys because we’ve won three in a row now without that. They’re finding ways to get it done.”
A prime example of resiliency was from Samsonov, who played just three games after missing almost three weeks due to an undisclosed injury.
After a bad loss to the Capitals in return, Samsonov rattled off back-to-back wins. He was the biggest reason why Vegas won on Monday, as he gave it a chance when it may not have deserved it.
In overtime, Nicolas Roy was called for holding, and Samsonov had to fend off a raid of Flyer shots. After extending the game to a shootout, he stonewalled three Philadelphia shooters for the win.
“I was happy with the win, and it was good to get two points,” Samsonov said. “I don’t like the shootout, though.”
Offensively, Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev paced the scoring effort. Eichel had two points, a goal, an assist, and the shootout winner, which moved him to second place in the league in points with 34.
Barbashev assisted on Eichel’s goal and scored his own off a pass from Eichel. The duo has been electric all season, even when they’ve had to work with different linemates.
With Stone out, Alexander Holtz, Pavel Dorofeyev and Cal Burke all have been tried for the vacant wing position. However, Eichel said that personnel changes aren’t an excuse.
“We feel confident with all the guys that are in the lineup every night,” Eichel said. “Obviously, we knew we were down a few guys, and it needed to be a simple game. Different guys had to step up.”
The Golden Knights have one more road game against Colorado on Wednesday before it returns to Vegas for three games. Monday’s win wasn’t ideal, but Vegas is taking the win and moving on.
“Not every game is going to be a full 60-minute effort, but it’s really nice to see us get the win,” Eichel said.