Revenge on Golden Knights’ minds as Flames come to Vegas
At least the Golden Knights didn’t have to wait long to seek revenge for the thumping they took Monday from the Calgary Flames.
The teams meet again at 3 p.m. on Friday at T-Mobile Arena.
“We owe them,” forward Alex Tuch said of the 7-2 loss at Calgary in which the Knights gave up the most goals they had all season. “It’s good (to play again so soon). They took it to us. It was a really good game by them.”
The Knights (10-12-1) did have the benefit of regaining some confidence between the meetings as they went on the road to Arizona and beat the Coyotes 3-2 in overtime on Wednesday night.
Now they can turn their attention back to the Pacific Division-leading Flames.
“It was an embarrassing one for us and it was all on us,” defenseman Brayden McNabb said after the Knights practiced Thursday. “The effort wasn’t there, and obviously our play wasn’t there. We’re ready. We definitely owe them, but they’re a good team.”
The Flames (13-8-1) certainly deserve credit for what they were able to do Monday.
They outskated and outworked the Knights, generating scoring opportunities seemingly at will for the first 40 minutes.
Tuch said he talked to members of the Flames who said it was their best performance in a long time. He also was wary of the Knights focusing too much on the last meeting.
“We can’t worry too much about what happened last game,” Tuch said. “We have to worry about us in this locker room.”
The Knights hope they picked up a few things strategically that will help slow down the Flames, though coach Gerard Gallant declined to give specifics.
“I’m not going to tell you, but I hope it works,” he joked. “I think it’s great (to play them again so soon). You get beat like that you want to get back at it. We got back at it in Arizona last night and played a real good game. But it will be good to play Calgary again. It’s fresh in our minds, so hopefully, we’re ready to respond and play real good.”
Marc-Andre Fleury is expected back in net after sitting out the loss in Calgary.
Fleury had to watch his backup Malcolm Subban endure an onslaught of high-danger shots.
“It’s good to get a chance to play them again right away,” Fleury said. “We can put that last one behind us and get a little confidence against them. They’re a good team though. They did the same thing to Winnipeg (on Wednesday). They have a lot of guys with skill who can score, so we have to be ready.”
Subban was far from the team’s biggest problem in the loss. The Knights made it far too easy on Calgary’s skilled forwards to skate and let players set up in dangerous areas without much challenge.
They can’t allow that to happen no matter who’s in net.
“I think we were a little bit too lackadaisical and we just weren’t making the hard plays we needed to,” Tuch said. “It wasn’t like we were turning pucks over left and right, but they were making the smart plays, we weren’t covering well and we took some bad penalties that led to goals. They were feeling it, obviously.”
There is some precedent to the Knights responding well to a bad November loss. Last season, they followed an 8-3 November road loss to the Oilers with five straight wins.
Wednesday’s road victory gave the Knights something to build on, but it’s been over a month since they were able to win consecutive games.
Breaking that trend would be even more valuable than vengeance.
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Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-277-8028. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.
Game day
Who: Flames at Golden Knights
When: 3 p.m. Friday
Where: T-Mobile Arena
TV: AT&T SportsNet (Cox 313/1313, DirecTV 684, CenturyLink 760/1760, U-verse 757/1757, Dish 414/5414)
Radio: KRLV (98.9 FM, 1340 AM); ESPN Deportes (1460 AM)
Line: Knights -130, Total 6
Three storylines
1. Welcome back, Jimmy. The Knights got their reunion with former teammate James Neal out of the way Monday in Calgary, but it's going to be different with the Flames coming to town for the first time. Neal will likely get a big ovation at the beginning of the game and his teammates could very well look to set him up with opportunities to score in his homecoming. The Knights will want to avoid that kind of emotional lift for Neal and the Flames.
2. Going streaking. The Knights haven't won consecutive games since Oct. 20. The players all talk about a desire to finally be able to end that run and put together back-to-back strong efforts, but it just hasn't happened. Wednesday's overtime win was a good one to try to build on and they won't want to let the opportunity pass with two division opponents coming to T-Mobile Arena on consecutive days.
3. What's in the box? The Knights penalty kill unit has been very good with the exception of Monday's game against Calgary. While the Flames did just about everything right that night, their power play was particularly lethal. The Knights will want to avoid taking unnecessary penalties so as to deal with Calgary's power play unit as little as possible.
