The Vegas Golden Knights have yet to lose on home ice. Their latest victim was the Utah Hockey Club, who blew a two-goal lead and faltered in overtime to succumb to Sin-Bin Knights.
The Vegas club improved their Pacific Division standing to 8-3-1, with ALL of their victories coming on T-Mobile arena ice. The Utah team fell to 5-4-3 after participating in their sixth overtime contest this new season. They have won three and lost three thus far. They just have trouble holding leads and it burns them.
They had the lead in the games in their three overtime losses but couldn't hold it. The most embarrassing of the losses was to the hapless San Jose Sharks, who overcame a 4-1 deficit to score four unanswered goals to get their first victory of the year.
Vegas took advantage of Utah's weakness
Not holding a lead can be dangerous against a team with the second-highest point total in the NHL this season. Vegas was outshooting their opponent 8-0 when the transplanted Utah club scored on their first shot against Adin Hill. There were times Hill's teammates could have used smelling salts to keep him awake.
In this writer's observation, the turning point of this game had to be when Noah Hanifin scored in the last second of the middle stanza to tie the game at two. Hanifin wasn't done; he assisted on a beautiful William Karlsson goal to give the Golden Knights the lead and then topped that off by assisting Howden on his game-winner.
Vegas seemed to know that Utah has difficulty holding a lead. It paid off, as Howden went past Alex Kerfoot to backhand the winner by Connor Ingram. It was Howden's sixth tally of the 2024-25 campaign. The irony of this sequence was that Kerfoot had tied the game at three with a little less than seven minutes to play in the third period.
The key overtime goal saw the Utah team tired
On an extended shift, the Vegas bench was yelling, “They’re tired, they’re tired,” and the Golden Knights took complete advantage of Utah’s fatigue with a critical line change, putting a rested Howden on the ice. Howden followed through with a beautiful individual effort to beat Connor Ingram and lift Vegas to their eighth home victory.
"Whenever you’re in OT, and you see the other team kind of hemmed in their zone for a while, you know how exhausting it can be. If you can get fresh bodies out there, it’s really dangerous, so I think we did a good job taking advantage of that."Noah Hanifin
Howden's game-winner saw Kerfoot as the only defender attempting to thwart his path to the net. Ingram was helpless as Howden placed a perfect shot by him with little help from his defense.
On the road again
The Golden Knights must now head to the road where they have yet to be nearly as successful, with just one point in four contests (0-3-1). They face the McDavid-less Edmonton Oilers, then the Seattle Kraken before hosting the Carolina Hurricanes at home. They then head to Anaheim to battle the Ducks and have a rematch in Utah on November 15th.
The Golden Knights have been anything but golden on the road and must find their game away from the friendly confines of T-Mobile arena.