Don’t sweat the Golden Knights’ second loss in four home games

By Case Keefer (contact)

Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2019 | 2 a.m.

Add Viktor Arvidsson to the incredibly short list of players who have ever made the Vegas Golden Knights look slow.

To set up what turned out to be the game-winning goal Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena, the Nashville Predators’ 5-foot-9, 180-pound speedster zipped into his team’s offensive zone, sliced through defenseman Jon Merrill and wrapped around the net. With the Golden Knights still looking frozen, Arvidsson fired a pass to linemate Calle Jarnkrok, who sniped a one-timer past Marc-Andre Fleury’s blocker side.

It was the second of three second-period goals by the Predators to lead them to a 5-2 win over the Golden Knights. The play was neither an indicator of Vegas losing its identity as one of the fastest teams in the NHL nor an indictment of its effort level.

Rather, it was an intimation of a tired team. Playing their third game in four nights for the first time this season had a visible effect on the Golden Knights.

“I don’t think we played bad,” Golden Knights forward Reilly Smith said. “I just think every mistake we made ended up in the back of their net.”

Players will always say there’s no such thing as an acceptable loss. But there is such a thing as an acceptable loss. This was an acceptable loss.

This was a game that anyone could have identified as a dreaded “bad spot” on the schedule before the season even started. And it somehow got worse with the Golden Knights nursing an injury to backup goalie Malcolm Subban, forcing Fleury to start all three games since Saturday.

Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne hadn’t played since last Thursday, adding a sizable advantage for the Predators in the crease. Backup Juuse Saros started in a loss at Los Angeles on Saturday, after which Nashville came straight to Vegas and had three days to fully acclimate to the Pacific time zone.

These are the types of edges traditionalists would disparage as non-excuses, the types of situations a team has to “gut out.” No one on the Golden Knights was using it as an excuse — Fleury said he felt fine — but to pretend it’s a non-factor is to ignore decades of advances in sports science.

“I think (the Predators) came in here, they lost their last game 7-4, they weren’t real happy and they won the tough areas tonight,” Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant said. “That was the difference in the game.”

Gallant is great in many areas, but hiding his emotions isn’t one of them. It’s not difficult to determine when he’s upset with his team after a loss between his terse responses and steely glares.

There wasn’t any of that after Tuesday’s defeat. Gallant criticized his team’s second-period collapse but described it as uncharacteristic and didn’t seem too concerned.

Gallant said he expected to tally the scoring chances as about even between the two teams once he watched the film. He might be in for a pleasant surprise. Vegas actually out-chanced Nashville 21-16 at even strength, according to Natural Stat Trick. The Golden Knights also had more expected goals.

They pelted Rinne with shots beyond a pair of first-period goals from Smith and Mark Stone — Max Pacioretty alone had three high-danger shots — but the veteran was sharp, rested and ready. He outplayed Fleury, who was directly responsible for the final second-period Nashville score when he committed a giveaway behind the net to Filip Forsberg, and that should be no surprise given the circumstances.

If this were one of the NHL’s lesser teams, perhaps the performance would be troubling. Nashville certainly doesn't fit that description.

The Predators are the winningest Western Conference franchise of the last two regular seasons. Pessimistic postgame chatter revolved around the fact that the Golden Knights have blown leads at home to the two best teams they’ve faced this year, the Predators and the Bruins.

Don’t fall for that.

There’s a reason most teams, including the Golden Knights, have only five three-games-in-four-nights stretches all season. Winning two out of the three, as the Golden Knights managed this time around, registers as a success.

No one likes losing, but this is one loss that everyone should be able to accept.

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.