Knights see three-game win streak snapped in 6-2 loss to Lightning

LAS VEGAS — If you were looking for a tight-checking, close hockey game at T-Mobile Arena Tuesday night, you went to the wrong place.

Instead of a disciplined battle that has been the norm, the Vegas Golden Knights and Tampa Bay Lightning played beer-league shinny, complete with odd-man rushes, lousy goaltending, at least from the Knights’ side of things and enough weird stuff that made you wonder if this was really the NHL on display.

The Bolts prevailed 6-2, using a three-goal second period, two of which were produced by Anthony Cirelli to snap Vegas’ three-game win streak and give the Knights their second home loss of the season.

Oh, and Vegas is no longer the top team in the NHL as it was overtaken by Carolina. Not that it matters in late October. At 8-3, they’re still pretty good. It simply wasn’t the case Tuesday.

“We didn’t help ourselves,” Knights coach Ryan Craig said. “That’s the easiest way to put it.

“I thought we were a little out of rhythm and when you don’t manage the puck, you’re going to have trouble.”

“You’re going to have games where it becomes wide-open and you have to adjust,” said Vegas’ Mark Stone. “Not every game is going to be the same.”

Carter Hart struggled, allowing five goals on 14 shots through two periods. He continues to get beaten from long distance, as was the case with Victor Hedman’s shot from just inside the blue line eluded him late in the second as Tampa upped the lead to 5-2.

That the Knights were in this game at all — it was 2-2 going into the second period — was due in a large part to the Bolts being sloppy and giving up odd-man rushes or turning the puck over in their own end. Ivan Barbashev got the first one when left unchecked in front and he knocked home the rebound of Mitch Marner’s shot that made it 1-1.

Some sloppy play is what led to Stone’s game-tying goal late in the first while Brayden McNabb was in the penalty box for holding. Andrei Vasilevskiy, who is normally decent in handling pucks behind his net, didn’t get all of the disk as he tried to get his team going the other way. Braeden Bowman got to the puck first, fed Stone alone in front and the captain finished for his team-high eighth goal of the year.

There was enough weirdness in this one to make you believe you were watching a movie. McNabb and Shea Theodore both broke their sticks while in a 4-on-4 situation and in what essentially became a 4-on-2, the Lightning were unable to score.

The Lightning had a 2-on-1 shorthanded opportunity in the second period only to see it dissolve when one of the forwards went to the bench for a change. But it ultimately didn’t impact the outcome. The Bolts kept scoring and whether it was Cirelli, Hedman or Nikita Kucherov, who beat Hart on a third-period breakaway, Tampa showed it wasn’t going to let Vegas back in this one.

If you’re being honest, the Knights have been beating the teams they’re supposed to beat. Two of their three losses (Anaheim, Minnesota and Tampa Bay) have come against teams with winning records. The eight wins have come against teams at .500 or below.  

“I don’t think there’s a measuring stick game when it’s Game 11,” Stone said. “We’e still trying to build our game going forward. I still like where we’re at.

“You have to correct your mistakes and build on the good things.
We did do some good things. We had some chances. We just didn’t finish.”

There’s a quick road trip to St. Louis Thursday and Columbus Saturday before returning home next week to host Ottawa and New Jersey. Then it’s a longer roadie — to Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Buffalo to begin November. We’ll probably get a better sense of where things truly stand with the Knights at the conclusion of that stretch.