Late in the first period, Golden Knights’ defenseman Brayden McNabb collected the puck behind his own net.
With no pressure in his face, he ripped a breakout pass that deflected off the shaft of Carolina forward Marcus Kruger’s stick and ricocheted into the Golden Knights’ net.
“It’s bad luck,” defenseman Colin Miller said, who was on the ice at the time. “It’s going to happen. That happens once in 82 games, so it is what it is.”
Vegas has had its fair share of lucky bounces early in the season, but Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena the Golden Knights rolled snake eyes.
They came out flat against one of the worst teams in the NHL — coming off a back-to-back — and lost 3-2 in the shootout to Carolina.
“We were flat and we didn’t come out with the same emotions as we usually come out with,” coach Gerard Gallant said. “Some nights your team is not going to be going full guns like we have at home for the most part.”
It was the first home loss after regulation for the Golden Knights, and while you can say the bounces didn’t go their way, Gallant would argue his team didn’t earn them.
“I’m a firm believer that when you work hard and compete hard you’re going to get your bounces and get your breaks and we just didn’t work hard tonight,” Gallant said.
The Hurricanes deserve credit for forcing mistakes. Carolina has one of the fiercest forechecks in the league, and they were on top of the Golden Knights from the first puck drop.
“They come hard,” Miller said. “When you make those turnovers, you can see they’re coming with three or four guys most of the time.”
It was the first game in nearly two months for Marc-Andre Fleury, who made his long-awaited return from a concussion. He had no chance on the first goal of the game, which was deflected right in front of him. It happened so quickly that Kruger didn’t realize he had scored until seconds later.
“I’m happy with the game, it was just a bad bounce,” Fleury said. “You don’t see that too often. I liked the way I progressed through the game, but the win would have been nicer.”
From that point Fleury was his old self. The 33-year-old netminder stopped 35 shots but couldn’t prevent Phillip Di Giuseppe from scoring the game-winning shootout goal. Di Giuseppe deked around Fleury and shot the puck into the back of the net.
“I think I got impatient and I lunged forward too much,” Fleury said. “The two goals were pretty much the same but on different sides. I think I bit too hard on it and they went around me. I have to stay patient.”
The unlucky bounce that put them down early didn’t doom the Golden Knights. They fought back from one-goal deficits on two occasions with goals by Deryk Engelland and Reilly Smith.
“You can’t have all the good bounces, but we just have to stay focused on ourselves,” defenseman Shea Theodore said. “When those kinds of things happen, it’s more about how you react.”
The loss ended a four-game win streak for Vegas, which isn’t the way it wanted to start a five-game homestand that runs up to Christmas Day.
“We just got off a high from a road trip where we played great hockey, and maybe came out tonight and just weren’t as prepared,” Gallant said. “The Christmas holidays are here and sometimes you’re better off being on the road because you focus more. Maybe our focus wasn’t quite there tonight.”
Maybe the Golden Knights were busy shopping for presents or looking forward to Christmas. Maybe they were looking forward to a different type of holiday — Thursday night when the two-time defending Stanley Cup Pittsburgh Penguins come to town, where Fleury will face his former team for the first time.
“I hope not, but maybe (we) did,” Gallant. “I have no idea. For me it’s about getting ready for tonight’s game and we got prepared. It happens to teams. You play 82 games and whether it happens seven or eight times a year, I don’t know what it is but sometimes you play flat.”
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