The Vegas Golden Knights liked the way they started Friday’s game against the Anaheim Ducks.
It wasn’t the domination from Tuesday’s season opener, but they got great looks without being able to put a puck past goaltender Lukas Dostal.
The end of the first is where things started to unravel. It bled into the second period to the tune of the Knights losing 4-3 to the Ducks at T-Mobile Arena.
The Knights rallied with three goals in the third period and had a great chance at the end to tie with the extra attacker, but finding that fourth goal was one dagger too many.
But the uphill climb started with 7.7 seconds left in the first period when Beckett Sennecke got behind the defense after a failed power play and scored on a breakaway to open the scoring.
“That’s tough,” forward Brett Howden said. “You feel like you have a good period, we’re at the end of the period and we’re coming off the rink down 1-0.”
Howden added he didn’t feel that goal was what led to a nightmarish start to the second period for the Knights.
Anaheim struck three times in five minutes, 30 seconds to push the lead to 4-0. The first two goals came 55 seconds apart.
Execution was a sticking point from coach Ryan Craig throughout training camp. The Knights weren’t a hair off. It was more like two or three.
Their play through the neutral zone wasn’t crisp. Pucks bounced off sticks. Passes weren’t clean. Turnovers led to dangerous chances, like Anaheim’s Leo Carlsson cashing in on an open net following a turnover from Brayden McNabb to make it 4-0.
“Against a team like that, you look at their top players, they’re high-end players with time and space,” captain Mark Stone said. “And if you turn the puck over or give them that time and space, they make plays, and they did.”
The ice tilted in the Knights’ favor analytically in the second half of the game. A case can be made Anaheim took its foot off the gas when the 4-0 lead was secured.
Maybe that’s why the Knights started chipping away in the third. It helped getting two goals from defenseman Shea Theodore and center Tomas Hertl in 2:29 to cut the lead in half, which was aided with a questionable challenge from Ducks coach Joel Quenneville on Theodore’s goal.
“You look at the o-zone, we were very in sync, forcing them to defend,” Stone said. “It wasn’t by making these miraculous behind the back plays or anything. Just support each other to put yourselves in a situation to take over.”
It’s a stark contrast from Tuesday’s 5-2 win over Chicago where the Knights clicked on all cylinders for nearly 60 minutes.
Craig stressed that the Ducks would be motivated because it was their season opener. Not to mention the revenge factor of playing the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last season.
Chalk it up to being close, but no cigar.
“I didn’t mind our first period. I thought our start was good. They were ready to play as well,” Craig said. “As the second period started, they put more pucks to the net, got some bounces and then won some races. You don’t ever want to get down in that situation, but I liked our response, but it took us awhile to respond.”
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.