LAS VEGAS \u2014 For the fans of the Vegas Golden Knights, they didn\u2019t have to sweat the prospects of their team participating in overtime Friday.<\/p>\n
They can thank Sam Montembeault for that.<\/p>\n
The Montreal Canadiens goaltender stopped 29 of the 30 shots he faced as the visitors rolled into town and left 4-1 victors. The Knights, who have not performed at a very high standard for much of November, continue to struggle in most areas of their game.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, we\u2019re chasing a lot of games,\u201d Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. \u201cIt takes too much energy. We need to play with more urgency when it\u2019s 1-0 or 0-0.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some might try to use the 1 p.m. start at T-Mobile Arena as an excuse. But the Knights usually don\u2019t play well in matinees and lately, they haven\u2019t played well period. You could drop the puck at 3 a.m. and it probably wouldn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
At times, the Knights looked like a bunch of guys in a tryptophan coma after gorging on too much Thanksgiving turkey. And on those rare occasions where they looked like they were on their game, Montembeault was there to close the door. He made a strong case to keep his spot on Team Canada\u2019s Olympic roster as Jordan Binnington\u2019s backup in net the way he performed Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe made some big saves to keep his team in it early,\u201d Cassidy said of Montembeault, who he got to coach last year when Canada was in the 4 Nations Face-Off. \u201cThat had something to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, Mark Stone is back and that\u2019s comforting. He was responsible for the lone Vegas goal Friday when he beat Montembeault with 4:44 remaining in the contest. And rookie forward Braeden Bowman has done fine in his short time with the parent club with four goals and seven points in nine games. But when you\u2019re going bad, coaches like to use the hockey cliche \u201cwe have too many passengers\u201d and if Cassidy were to utter that phrase, who could blame him?<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t in his postgame remarks Friday. Instead, he defended the team\u2019s play during this stretch \u2014 to a point.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t look at it as a bad three weeks,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had points in six straight games.\u201d<\/p>\n
While that\u2019s true, the reality is they have not been good, either individually or collectively. Mitch Marner last scored Nov. 8. That has been his entire goal output for the month of November. He does have eight assists this month but is that a fair point\u00a0total\u00a0to expect for someone who is being paid $12 million a year?<\/p>\n
Of course it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
But Marner isn’t the only underachiever. Pavel Dorofeyev also has just one goal this month. Ivan Barbashev has one goal in his last nine games. Brett Howden has two goals for the month while Jack Eichel has three in November. Colton Sissons and Keegan Kolesar have yet to score this year.<\/p>\n
Normally, you\u2019d look at the upcoming schedule and say it\u2019s the antidote for what has been ailing Vegas. But San Jose, which comes into T-Mobile Saturday night, has played better. So has Chicago, Tuesday\u2019s opponent which wraps up the four-game homestand which so far has been subpar.
\u00a0
\u201cI think you need to play to your strength and to where it\u2019s coming through,\u201d Cassidy said in trying to figure out how to get a good portion of this group going. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to ask Mitch Marner to be Keegan Kolesar. That\u2019s not happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eichel said it\u2019s up to the players to figure it out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought there were pockets of good hockey,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we\u2019re kinda fighting it right now to find the back of the net.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like we\u2019re forcing it a little, then we make a mistake and it\u2019s in our net. So we\u2019ve got clean some things up for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a team whose passing skills are in its DNA, the need to shoot more constantly comes up after performances such as Friday\u2019s. Eichel, who has been as guilt as anyone when it comes to over-passing the puck, said perhaps a simplification of things is warranted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe probably need to be more direct with the puck,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have an unselfish group in here and that\u2019s not a bad thing. But sometimes, getting pucks and bodies to the net is a good recipe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good news is we play in 24 hours so we have a chance to be better (Saturday) night.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 For the fans of the Vegas Golden Knights, they didn\u2019t have to sweat the prospects…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5129],"tags":[762,149,5317,5,1041,1040,533,40,4,4972,74,39,5316],"class_list":{"0":"post-328408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vegas-golden-knights","8":"tag-bruce-cassidy","9":"tag-golden-knights","10":"tag-goldenknights","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-jack-eichel","13":"tag-mark-stone","14":"tag-mitch-marner","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-tst-las-vegas","18":"tag-vegas","19":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","20":"tag-vegasgoldenknights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115631212773285477","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}