Upon further review, Golden Knights turn to video after rough 2nd period

The Vegas Golden Knights returned to the locker room after a second period in which the Dallas Stars blew Thursday night’s game wide open.

Bruce Cassidy then went to an unusual tactic he certainly hasn’t tried in his 10-year coaching career.

The video screen was brought out and the Knights had a mini film session during the second intermission to see where everything went wrong.

“If we have to do that, that’s what we’ll do,” Cassidy said. “It’s strange in the NHL to be doing it midgame, but if that’s what it takes to get their attention and get it right, that’s what we’ll do.”

Desperate times call for desperate measures, but it had to be done.

After Keegan Kolesar tied the score 1-1 4:07 into the middle frame, the Stars erupted for three goals in the final 15:53 to take a 4-1 lead into intermission.

Meanwhile, the Knights were held to three shots after Kolesar’s goal.

The video focused on the chances the Knights gave up. Cassidy pointed to their defensive structure, and their positioning wasn’t in the proper place.

“I could draw it on the board, but you might as well look at it,” he said. “We’ll look at it tomorrow, so we save them some time.”

Call it the video session that turned the tide, if you will. The Knights rallied from three goals down to steal a point, but couldn’t get the second after losing 5-4 in a shootout to Dallas at T-Mobile Arena.

“We’re a team that pushes back and has a lot of resilience,” said Mitch Marner, who scored the tying goal with 48.7 seconds left. “We don’t want to be that team that’s always down going into the third, but it is good to know we have that confidence to make sure we don’t stay out of games and fight our way back into them.”

Cassidy is at the point where he’s trying anything to find consistency.

It looked like the Knights turned the corner following with their seven-game winning streak. But they have now lost five of six with four games left until the Winter Olympics break.

Rallying from deficits and finding their game in the third period has become one of those constant issues. The Knights are 4-12-9 when trailing after two periods this season.

They had to do that Tuesday in Montreal, despite having a 1-0 lead after the first period. The Knights went on to lose 3-2 in overtime.

When asked if he’s frustrated about the team rallying to earn a point but needing another furious rally to get it done and coming up short, Cassidy reverted to a saying he’s said in the past.

“Frustration is a useless emotion, so I try to stay away from it,” he said.

Yet despite the frustration, or lack thereof, of the Knights (25-14-14) played their 21st overtime game of the season. They fell to 1-6 in shootouts.

Those 14 overtime losses have allowed the Knights to remain in first place in the Pacific Division with two games in hand on the Edmonton Oilers.

But they have had only that one stretch — the seven-game run from the beginning of January — to claim they found consistency. Seven games out of 53.

“You know the definition of insanity, so we’re going to try and fix it,” Cassidy said. ”So we’re going to try different things to sort of get the players to understand and maybe they see it so they understand what they’re doing.”

Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.