Charlie Coyle had the winner for the Colorado Avalanche in the shootout, sinking the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 on Tuesday night. Vegas had a good first period and a good first minute of the second, which made a 2-1 lead. Then, the air was slowly sucked out of the room along with any chance to stop the comeback by the Avs. It was similar to the Edmonton Oilers game last week, where the Golden Knights lost.
On the plus side, the Golden Knights clinched home ice in the first round. As hollow as that might feel, whether it’s a hot St. Louis who finally lost Monday or Minnesota getting it together as it stands, that will come in handy. Here are my three takeaways on a rocky night in the Mile High City.
2nd period offensive deep freeze dooms Vegas
OUR BRO!!! pic.twitter.com/8ewQgoK9HR
— x-Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) April 9, 2025
As mentioned, leading up to that goal by Brayden McNabb early in the second, Vegas was in a good position to eke out their sixth straight road win against one of the Conference’s best teams. Unfortunately, that lovely tally (with the well-positioned screen by William Karlsson) made up ¼ of the shots they had the rest of the period. Subsequently, Jimmy Vesey would score late in the period, and Colorado never let go of the momentum the rest of the game.
This is the third game against a top tier West contender where something like this has happened; each one a big old loss. This close to the postseason…that’s a big honking yellow flag!
Dry April power play starting to be an issue
Speaking of yellow flags, the Golden Knights have yet to score a power play goal in the month of April: 0 for their last 10 chances. It’s the longest this team has gone without a power play goal, which is a testament to how dominant this power play has been all season long.
Tuesday night was a small microcosm of those troubles. They had three straight power plays over the final 15 minutes of the game (counting overtime) and mustered only two shots. If the Kings do end up passing Vegas in the Pacific, that chunk of time is going to stand out like a meteor shower.
Akira Schmid makes case to be playoff backup in losing effort
When Ilya Samsonov went down with an injury just before the game at Nashville a week and a half ago, there was a legitimate question of what that’d mean for the backup job behind Adin Hill. In the course of this road trip, Akira Schmid has pretty firmly put that question to bed.
He was superb against Calgary, especially on the save of Mikael Backlund just before the end of regulation. On Tuesday in Denver, he had 34 saves and kept this game closer than it had any right to be. If Samsonov remains a big question mark going into Game 1 of the first round, he wouldn’t be the worst choice to come in in case of emergency.
Next on the Marquee:
It’s the Seattle Kraken Thursday night in the second-to-last home game of 2024-2025 at 7 P.M. There's nice poetry to having two of the biggest Golden Knights pop up in the last two games at home. Yes, the schedulers probably had the bright idea at the start of the year that this would be a big game with a strong whiff of postseason importance to it. And I guess it does, in terms of the division. But after the Kraken were torched 7-1 in Utah… it takes much of the oomph out of it. Anyway, Until then…