Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024 | 11:41 p.m.
The Golden Knights’ 6-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena will go down as their 12th come-from-behind win of the season.
They trailed for about 10 minutes early before scoring three unanswered goals to close the first period.
Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy has previously boasted about the team’s ability to stay calm when they are losing. Saturday, he also expressed concern about “not executing well enough early in the game.”
He continued, “What snaps out of us is the other team scores, and we gotta get going unless we want to chase it even more.”
In Saturday’s game, Nicolas Hague was called for holding two minutes into the game and Seattle converted eight seconds into the power play for an early 1-0 advantage.
It was a similar narrative two weeks ago when Vegas fell behind eight minutes into the game at Vancouver. And last week against Minnesota, they gave up a goal 90 seconds into the game.
“They’re not at the level they need to be to start,” Cassidy said. “They know it, so that’s the good thing.”
But Vegas’ veteran roster hasn’t blinked in the face of a deficit — in five of the past six games, it has rallied four times to take a lead after giving up the game’s first goal.
Keegan Kolesar and Brett Howden scored about 80 seconds apart in the first period to give Vegas the lead for good. Hague scored at the 17:48 mark of the period on assists from Jack Eichel and Mark Stone.
Vegas wound up scoring five unanswered goals before Seattle scored with six minutes left in the game.
“We know that we’re a pretty old team,” Hague said. “There are guys that have been around, so there’s lots of experience. I like to always say, ‘Never too high, never too low.’ Our group does a really good job of that. Whether we’re up one or down one, we know we’re in the game.”
Eichel had two assists to give him 35 assists on the season — second best in the NHL.
Kolesar scored his eighth goal to tie a career-high for goals in a season, and Ilya Samsonov picked up his eighth win by making 21 saves on 23 Kraken shots.
Vegas improves to 22-8-3 on the year and is tied with New Jersey for the second-best record in the league. The Golden Knights will host the Anaheim Ducks 7 p.m. Monday.
“We’ve got to get the next goal, stay in the game, and get to our game because we can be better,” Cassidy said. “That’s what happens and it’s been a different guy every time.”