Cassidy says Knights ‘need to be more competitive’ in net-front battles
Tomas Hertl tends to have the answer to many of life’s questions, whether good or bad.
But even he isn’t sure what to say about the Vegas Golden Knights’ slow starts.
“I wish I knew,” Hertl said. “We would probably do it.”
It’s becoming a broken record. The Knights fall behind. They exert a lot of energy to mount a comeback.
They tend to fall behind in different ways. A 3-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena was because the Knights’ compete level in the front of the net was nowhere close to the standard coach Bruce Cassidy expects.
The Knights gave up the first goal for the seventh time in the last nine games. The first goal drew the most of Cassidy’s ire.
After winger Braeden Bowman gave away the puck in the offensive zone, the Kraken got going in transition.
Former Knights center Chandler Stephenson used his speed to get around defenseman Jeremy Lauzon. Stephenson dropped it to winger Ryan Winterton, whose shot was saved.
Eeli Tolvanen trailed the play, got through the four Knights players who were near the net unscathed and put home the rebound at 6:50 for the 1-0 Seattle lead.
“Before the goal we have the puck on our stick in the o-zone, we burp it up and now they’re coming,” Cassidy said. “That part of it, we got four guys in front of our net. Their guy just comes in.”
WHAT A FINN-ISH 🚨 pic.twitter.com/d0HSUtTnl5
— Seattle Kraken (@SeattleKraken) February 1, 2026
It could be a mental battle. Hertl said T-Mobile Arena shouldn’t be this easy for teams coming in. There’s a good shift, but even if the Knights don’t score, Hertl said it should be something to get the fans going and get the building engaged, rather than waiting for the comeback to make it happen.
“Now it’s like, if we give up a goal, here we go again. We stop playing. This can’t happen,” Hertl said. “It’ll happen. We’ll never score first every time, but we can’t just let another one in and have nothing for the rest of the period. We’re too good of a team.”
Cassidy pointed to the defensemen needing to be better in those kinds of situations. It’s a veteran group with years of experience with the exception of Kaedan Korczak.
The Knights are moving different players around because of injuries. Mitch Marner is playing center. Reilly Smith is playing center. The blue line needs to be the constant.
“We need to be a hell of a lot more competitive in front of our own net,” Cassidy said. “It cost us two goals tonight. That’s our D taking care of business there. It’s our goaltender fighting and finding pucks.”
Seattle added a power-play goal at 13:04 on a one-timer from winger Jared McCann.
The Knights, as is habit from Thursday’s furious rally against Dallas from 4-1 down to force overtime, scored twice in the second period to tie it thanks to goals from Ivan Barbashev and Mitch Marner.
But the Kraken’s go-ahead goal from Kaapo Kakko at 3:18 of the third was another battle in front that the Knights couldn’t respond to.
what a move, Kap 🤩 pic.twitter.com/jjCW65nkEI
— Seattle Kraken (@SeattleKraken) February 1, 2026
It didn’t help that the puck bounced off Korczak and right to Kakko’s stick in front of the blue paint, but it was still an instance the Knights lost a battle that hurt them in a crucial moment.
It’s another situation where the Knights can’t flush what happened, but they have to have a short memory. A quick trip to Anaheim to face the struggling Ducks awaits Sunday on the second night of a back-to-back.
There’s not much time to beat the dead horse about competing and get off to a fast start. It’s going to be on the fly.
“The battle in front turns out to be the difference tonight and that’s something we’ve got to get back into our game,” Cassidy said.
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
