Knights’ loss leaves Gallant at loss
Coach flustered by play against Sabres
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Granted, it’s a small sample size. But three games into the Golden Knights’ season, two disturbing trends continue to play out.
1. They’re making costly lapses in the defensive zone.
2. They’re struggling to score despite generating plenty of shots.
“I didn’t like anything again today,” a clearly frustrated Gerard Gallant said Monday after his team’s 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres before an announced Columbus Day crowd of 16,004 at Keybank Center.
“We didn’t play good enough to win the hockey game. I’d like to say just because we had lots of shots and that, but they were the better team. They were more committed to winning today, and we didn’t show up good enough.”
The Knights coach made similar comments following the Knights’ 5-2 loss on opening night when Philadelphia scored three goals in the second period.
Buffalo scored on its first three shots of the second Monday, as the Knights were caught puck watching in their own zone on too many occasions.
“Too many grade-a (chances), obviously,” forward Max Pacioretty said. “We can’t leave our goaltender out to dry like that.”
It only gets tougher for the Knights (1-2), who continue
KNIGHTS
their five-game road trip at Washington on Wednesday in a rematch of last year’s Stanley Cup Final.
From there, the Knights head to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with the possibility of a 1-5 start staring them in the face.
“We’re just not doing our job,” Jonathan Marchessault said. “Our forwards are supposed to do a lot of work, too, back-checking, reloading and we’re not doing that. We need to give options on the walls (for our defensemen). We’re not playing a good game.”
The Knights outshot Buffalo 3717, but unlike Saturday’s game at Minnesota, there were few quality chances.
Marchessault notched a goal and an assist against the Sabres and has four points through three games. William Karlsson picked up his first points of the season, assisting on both of the Knights goals.
Nobody else on the Knights has more than one point, though.
And after finishing fifth in the league with 3.27 goals per game last season, the Knights have scored five times this season (1.67 goals per game).
“Sometimes when the puck’s not going in you can do a little bit better job crashing the net and make it a little harder on their defense to box you out and try to score those greasy goals,” right wing Reilly Smith said. “We’re not doing a good enough job of doing that right now. You have to adapt your game if the puck’s not going in.”
The Knights trailed after the first period for the third consecutive game, as Buffalo captain Jack Eichel scored a power-play goal with 5:29 left in the first. Eichel put the Sabres up 2-0 when he was left uncovered in