Another goalie goes down
Forced to use fourth option of year in net, Knights falter
NEW YORK — The road can be a cruel and inhospitable place.
But for an expansion team, sometimes it can be a bit crueler.
The Golden Knights, darlings of the NHL through their first nine games, got a harsh dose of reality Monday in Brooklyn as the New York Islanders scored five unanswered goals over the final two periods and ended the Knights’ five-game winning streak with a 6-3 win at Barclays Center.
But the bigger loss was in goal, as the Knights suffered the loss of another goaltender. Oscar Dansk left the game with an apparent lower-body injury after Islanders captain John Tavares scored with 5:10 left in the second period on the power play.
Dansk, who earlier in the day had been honored by the NHL as the league’s No. 2 star of the week, appeared to have lost an edge with his skate and slipped and landed awkwardly just prior
to the first of Tavares’ two tallies. He was replaced by Maxime Lagace, who was seeing his first NHL action and had a rough time of it.
Lagace, the fourth goalie to be used by the Knights in their 10-game existence, allowed four goals on 11 shots.
“You’ve got to be ready, that’s your job,” Lagace said. “When I saw Oscar get hurt, I knew I was going in, and I tried to focus.
“It wasn’t a perfect night. It wasn’t the start I wanted. But I’ll regroup and get ready for (Tuesday).”
KNIGHTS
The Knights were exploring the possibility of using Dylan Ferguson as an emergency recall Tuesday to back up Lagace. Ferguson, who signed a three-year entry-level contract with the team in late September, has been playing for his junior team, the Kamloops (British Columbia) Blazers in the Western Hockey League. In 13 games this season, Ferguson is 4-9 with a 4.05 goals-against average and an .878 save percentage.
Coach Gerard Gallant wished his team had played a little better in front of Lagace. The Islanders swarmed all over the Knights from midway through the second period after trailing 2-1 after the first. Tavares scored twice and Andrew Ladd, Mathew Barzal, Cal Clutterbuck and Nikolay Kulemin also scored as the Knights fell to 8-2 and began their six-game East Coast road trip on a down note.
William Karlsson scored a first-period short-handed goal, while
Alex Tuch and Colin Miller scored power-play goals to account for the Knights’ scoring. But the five trips to the penalty box would lend a hand in their undoing as the Islanders went 2 of 5 on the power play while killing any momentum the Knights had.
The game might have swung early in the second period as the Knights had a 2-1 lead and were looking for more with Tavares in the penalty box for hooking. Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault had great chances to beat Jaroslav Halak, and either of which would have made it 3-1. But they were unable to covert, and the Islanders eventually caught and passed the Knights, much to the delight of the announced crowd of 11,113.
“That was a critical moment,” Gallant said. “If we convert there, it’s 3-1 and it’s probably a different game.
“But we took some bad penalties, and against a good team like that in their building you’re not going to have a lot of success when you do that.”
Gallant did not know the particulars of Dansk’s injury or whether or not he will be out for any length of time.
“We’ll see,” he said. “Right now, it’s next man up. Max came in in a tough situation, and we didn’t help him much.”
Thatnextmanisnotmarc-andre Fleury. He is on the trip with the team and continues to be monitored for the concussion he suffered Oct. 13. But he has not been cleared to return to the ice, and Gallant said he didn’t know when Fleury can return.
“He’s day-to-day. He can come back at any time, but I don’t know when that will be,” he said.
Islanders coach Doug Weight was
proud of his team’s comeback, even at the expense of a goalie seeing his first NHL action.
“This is 8-2 with some really horrific breaks as well,” Weight said of the Knights. “You look at Marc-andre and then (Malcolm) Subban, who was pitching a shutout or maybe gave up one late, then Dansk comes in and goes 3-0 and now he gets hurt. Tough scenario, but they keep battling.”
Contact Steve Carp at scarp@ reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow @stevecarprj on Twitter.