A weird bounce and a familiar issue doom the Golden Knights in Seattle

Well, the Tortorella Tidal Wave had to end at somepoint. I just hoped it wouldn't be in this fashion, to this opponent.

Yup, it's true: the Golden Knights gave Seattle just their sixth win since the Olympic break, and second in their last 12, snapping the Kraken's six-game losing streak despite holding multiple two-goal leads. Luck was seemingly not on Vegas' side, with weird bounces and puck motion breaking up a variety of good opportunities.

Ultimately, Joey Daccord was just a little bit better than Adin Hill. On top of that, the league's two worst shootout teams went to one, because of course they did, and the worst one stayed the worst. Let's check out exactly what went wrong and the resulting playoff implications.

After a strong start, Adin Hill is cursed down the stretch

And it was going so well. Through two periods, Adin Hill was having one of his best starts in recent memory, allowing just one goal on 21 shots and making some excellent saves. However, the hockey gods apparently weren't with him tonight, as roughly six minutes into the third, whatever this was happened:

What should've been a bog-standard play along the boards took a turn for the worse when the puck took a strange bounce off a stanchion. Hill, playing for the behind-the-net stop and obviously not expecting this, was caught out of his net, leaving Berkly Catton with an easy empty-net goal to cut Vegas' lead to one. Bobby McMann would later score a quick one just after the nine-minute mark on a shot Hill probably should've had, and like that we ended up in overtime despite holding 2-0 and 3-1 leads.

It's wrong to pin the entire loss on Hill; Moneypuck says he was only slightly below average, and he was solid in the shootout (at least, except for Matty Beniers' disgusting deke). That said, this was probably his last chance to push Carter Hart out of the (hopeful) playoff starter's net, and given the third-period collapse, I don't think he did that.

This team is so, so, so bad at shootouts

I don't even know what to say here. After tonight's mess, Vegas now sits at 1-8 in shootouts on the year, with the only win coming in Carter Hart's debut back in December. Even with Adin Hill stopping three of his first four shots faced, the team still couldn't get it done, as Mitch Marner was the only Vegas skater to convert on his opportunity.

Outside of that, it was all extremely weak efforts; Shea Theodore's trademark backhander didn't go through, and Jack Eichel seemingly tried to shoot directly at Joey Daccord's crest. With a roster this offensively stacked, one for five in the shootout is outright unacceptable, and I like to think Torts tore them a new one in the locker room afterwards. Hopefully it's something that gets fixed in time for next season.

Moving on, some slightly better news! With the loser point marking a seven-game point streak, and Nashville's regulation loss tonight, the Golden Knights' magic number of points is now down to two, as the current western 9-seed Predators can max out at 90 points.

What that means is simple: Saturday in Colorado is a win-and-in, as one in any fashion would put Vegas at 91. Needless to say, this matchup against the best team in hockey will be the biggest game of the season for the guys in gold. That said, with the President's Trophy clinched, I do like to think they'll be resting some guys, so Vegas may have the odds on its side.