(Photo Credit: @EdmontonOilers on X/Twitter)

Two games, two similar scripts.

The Golden Knights dug themselves a deep hole by starting slow, then managed to turn it around and make a game of it, ultimately falling short.

What you’ve seen out of this team is poor starts and great finishes all year. Starts can be in us, we’ve had good starts, so it’s there, but obviously it’s my job to get it out of them. And it’s their job as professionals. They’ve watched the same movie too, and at some point it’s like ‘ok guys, let’s put an end to this.’ -Bruce Cassidy

This franchise has done well at steering clear of frustration, but it’s clearly sinking in following the last two games in Alberta.

As far as the start, not good enough again, and now we’re paying the price. Let’s learn from that. I’ve used that line a lot.

As a coach, you are sort of like, ‘do we have to revisit this again?’ And the players do they want to hear it again? So just own it, just frickin’ own it, and let’s move past it and correct it and build our game that we know we’re capable of doing. -Cassidy

VGK have allowed the first goal in four consecutive games and have trailed at some point in 11 of the last 14 games. They’ve allowed the first goal in 20 of their 34 games, the fourth most in the league. They also currently rank 29th in the NHL in time spent leading ahead of only Los Angeles, Nashville, and Seattle. The Golden Knights have held the lead for a measly 25.5% of the time this season.

Before this past road trip, the deficits typically haven’t extended beyond one or two goals. With Jack Eichel, Shea Theodore, and William Karlsson all sidelined in the last two, it’s ballooned to four goals each game.

When you’re down some key pieces sometimes it’s tough but you can’t defer, you have to attack the game. When we do that we have success and we’ve shown that. -Hanifin

Although it continues to irk the team as to why they can’t get going early in games, their ability to recover and often erase the early failures has been nothing short of remarkable.

With this team, so much talent, we’re never out of a game. That’s the beauty of playing for the VGK, we’re always in games even if we’re chasing from behind. -Lauzon

Next up is a four-game homestand against Western Conference opponents, including the best team in the NHL by a wide margin, the Colorado Avalanche.

VGK must find a way to stem the flow of the slow starts because if they don’t, their comfortable position in the standings will vanish as the calendar flips to 2026.