Offense betrays Golden Knights in overtime loss to Wild

Mark Stone claimed he’s forgotten about last season’s playoffs when the Golden Knights’ sputtering offense led to an eventual ouster.

The captain received a reminder Sunday, regardless of whether he wanted one.

The Knights experienced playoff deja vu in Game 1 of the first round, generating plenty of shots but failing to score in a 1-0 loss to Minnesota before an announced crowd of 8,683 at T-Mobile Arena.

Joel Eriksson Ek scored 3:20 into overtime for the Wild, who snatched home-ice advantage in the best-of-seven series that continues Tuesday.

“We outplayed them for a majority of the game,” Stone said. “We’ve got to find ways to score. It’s not just finding those dirty areas. You’ve got to find loose pucks. We’ve got to make plays.

“When you get the grade As, you’ve got to bear down and score. And we had lots of those.”

The Knights welcomed back defenseman Alec Martinez along with forwards Ryan Reaves, Alex Tuch and Tomas Nosek for the first playoff game at T-Mobile Arena since April 21, 2019.

But leading goal scorer Max Pacioretty remained sidelined, and the offense couldn’t solve Wild goaltender Cam Talbot.

Similar to their matchups against Dallas and Vancouver during the playoff bubble, the Knights finished with a 42-30 advantage in shots on goal and 81-47 in shot attempts but had nothing to show for it on the scoreboard.

The Wild also blocked 23 shots, and the Knights had an additional 16 attempts that missed the net.

“It’s going to be tough to score. We knew that coming in,” coach Pete DeBoer said. “To come out of the first period with the type of pressure we put on and not have anything to show for it was probably the biggest disappointment because they regrouped and the rest of the game was pretty even.”

Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury earned the start for the Knights and finished with 29 stops, including a handful against Wild center Ryan Hartman.

His best save came about five minutes into the third period when Fleury reached behind his back with glove and got a piece of Kirill Kaprizov’s shot from point-blank range.

“I was just trying to take it one shot at a time against me,” Fleury said. “It’s definitely frustrating to lose that game at the end.”

The Knights killed a penalty in overtime to Jonathan Marchessault, but Eriksson Ek converted shortly after it expired.

Jordan Greenway intercepted Alex Pietrangelo’s clearing attempt along the boards and carried the puck behind the net before he centered a pass.

Eriksson Ek was left alone in the slot, and his shot deflected off Martinez and past Fleury.

“Just playing with each other for a long time, you get a sense of where the puck is going to end up,” Eriksson Ek said. “You just try to get to that spot, and the puck bounced out there and just tried to get it off as quick as possible.”

The Wild, who went 5-1-2 during the regular-season series, didn’t flinch after the Knights came out blazing in the first period.

The Knights outshot Minnesota 19-5 in the first period, and Tuch hit the goalpost late.

But the Wild got better the longer the game stayed tied and tested Fleury a handful of times in the final two periods. He came up with several key stops to keep the game tied, including a windmill glove save on Nick Bjugstad late in the second.

“We’ve got to find another goal somewhere, somehow, at some point prior to it getting to overtime,” DeBoer said. “That’s going to take a lot out of you physically when you lose a game like that. Mentally, too. It’s nice to have a day (Monday) to regroup.”

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.