The Vegas Golden Knights head into the final contest of a season-high six-game homestand against the New York Islanders on Thursday night with a three-game losing streak and on the outside looking in of the playoff picture.
Not exactly the start expected for a team that is looking to challenge for its second Stanley Cup in four years.
But center Tomas Hertl, who celebrated his 32nd birthday Wednesday, said there’s no reason to push the panic button.
“It’s such a long season,” Hertl said after a 3-2 loss to two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida on Monday night. “It’s 15 of 82 games. Everybody knows it’s never a great 82-game season, but we have to figure it out because you need every point, because it’s always nice to have it, because it’s tough to chase. But we know we have a great team. We know what it takes.”
The Golden Knights are just 2-4-2 over their last eight games and have won just once — a 1-0 victory over the Detroit Red Wings — in the first five games of the homestand. Vegas has won just four of its nine home games (4-3-2) this season.
That’s quite a drop off from the early days at T-Mobile Arena when it was jokingly referred to that visiting teams suffered from “the Vegas Flu.” The expansion Golden Knights went 29-10-2 in 2017-18 en route to a Stanley Cup Final loss to Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.
Two key injuries have hampered Vegas. Captain Mark Stone, who had two goals and 11 assists in the first six games of the season and was a key cog on the power play, was put on long-term injured reserve with a right wrist injury he suffered Oct. 18 against Calgary. Starting goalie Adin Hill is expected to be sidelined for several months after suffering a lower-body injury that resulted in him being helped off the ice Oct. 20 against Carolina.
“We’re a very resilient team,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We’ll answer the bell.”
New York is starting the western portion of a seven-game road trip that began close to home with back-to-back wins over the New York Rangers (5-0) on Saturday and in overtime against the New Jersey Devils on Monday (3-2).
It’s the first game of a back-to-back for the Islanders, who then head to Salt Lake City for a Friday night game against the Utah Mammoth. That’s followed by a Sunday contest with NHL points leader Colorado. The trip also includes stops in Dallas and Detroit.
Following a practice at T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday, New York coach Patrick Roy said Ilya Sorokin will get the start in goal for Thursday’s game. Sorokin, who is 3-0-1 in his last four starts, including three road wins, has excelled against Vegas in his career, compiling a 3-2-1 record with two shutouts and a 1.96 goals-against average.
“I just feel that he’s playing with confidence right now,” Roy said. “He’s on top of the crease, he’s reading plays well. You can tell. When someone is confident, it makes a big difference in your game.”
The Islanders swept the two games with Vegas last season, including a 4-0 win in Las Vegas on Jan. 9 when Sorokin made 30 saves.
“I’m not going to focus on last year, I’m going to focus on this year,” Roy said. “We just need to continue to do things that we are doing well so far. It seems to me that we are playing well defensively. We’re cutting down on chances five-on-five, and our PK was really good against probably the best power play in the league against (New Jersey), and when they had chances, Ilya was there for us.”
Sorokin stopped 33 shots against the Devils, while Mathew Barzal scored the game-winner 1:17 into overtime.
