Takeaways from a brutal Vegas Golden Knights loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning

To say this game was one to forget would be understating it. Fresh off back-to-back blowout wins over the Penguins and Flames, the Golden Knights were rolling coming into this one, boasting the NHL's top record and leading offense. Unfortunately, however, the Tampa Bay Lightning are not exactly the same calibre of team as the aforementioned two, and it showed in an ugly, ugly loss.

After a rollercoaster first period came out in a draw, Tampa locked in for the second period and never looked back, with Anthony Cirelli and Nikita Kucherov torturing Vegas in the defensive zone while Andrei Vasilevskiy stoned them in the offensive end. Let's take a look at what we should be thinking after this stinker of a game, which, unfortunately for us all, was a national TV broadcast on ESPN.

Carter Hart is still not that guy

I will openly admit I'm predisposed to disliking Hart, given his personal baggage and the PR hit the team took in bringing him in. However, I feel like I'm able to separate out my view of his person from my view of his play.

It just so happens, though, that both of those views are negative.

Hart had an atrocious night on Tuesday, allowing six goals on just 21 shots for a positively horrendous .714 save percentage. It was the third time in seven starts he's allowed four or more goals, and while Vegas' defense had their share of flaws, you can't defend having the reaction time of a snail here:

Hart had an ungodly amount of time to get across the crease there, but instead left a juicy rebound for John Carlson to put the Bolts up 2-1. The advanced stats back up the eye test too; Tampa had just 2.95 expected goals on the night, with Hart posting an utterly dreadful -3.05 goals saved above average. That's three entire goals that were credited solely to his play in net, even controlling for bad defense or luck. Sure, we got goalied heavily (see our 3.93 expected goals for compared to two actual goals), but even if we'd converted on that, we still would've lost by two.

Given Hart had just 1.5 goals saved above expected coming into tonight, he basically inverted that, and is once again underwater. I think it's fair to say he padded his stats a little with good performances against bottom-feeders like Calgary and Los Angeles; it's now legitimately concerning that in three games against actual playoff teams (Anaheim, Minnesota, and tonight), he's looked more like his historically-bad Stanley Cup Finals form. In short, he's still yet to show reason for confidence that he can be a genuine starter, and in my opinion, it's time to see if Adin Hill's improved performances are worthy of retaking the 1A slot.

Mark Stone, however, is still that guy

In one of tonight's only bright spots, this happened:

That's now a three-game goal streak for the captain, who's remained scorching hot since his natural hat trick against Calgary. This shorty was an absolute thing of beauty; his pressure on Vasilevskiy forced a quick pass, which Braeden Bowman picked off and sent cross-ice to an undefended Stone. With Victor Olofsson's absence continuing, fingers crossed Stone can keep up this heater as long as he can.

Next up, it's a two game road trip against St. Louis and Columbus. Let's hope for the best, and go Knights go!

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