Golden Knights win meaningless finale: ‘It’s an awful feeling’

ST. LOUIS — William Karlsson barely reacted.

The Golden Knights center had just given his team a third-period lead against a playoff team with an incredible wrist shot over goaltender Ville Husso’s right shoulder. Yet there was no hint of a smile as he skated back to the bench. After a few light fist bumps with his linemates, it was on to the next play.

The Knights were in no mood to celebrate anything after a 7-4 win in their season finale against the St. Louis Blues on Friday at Enterprise Center. They were just playing out the string. And despite a strong effort against a good club, they will head home from a three-game road trip to clean out their lockers after being eliminated from playoff contention Wednesday.

“It’s an awful feeling,” left wing Jonathan Marchessault said. “It’s a pointless game. It’s just unfortunate that we put ourselves in that situation. We have no one else to blame but just ourselves.”

Defenseman Zach Whitecloud was even more blunt when he said: “It sucks.”

The win was the finale of a tumultuous fifth season for the Knights.

There were numerous injuries that totaled approximately 500 man games lost, many of them to key players such as captain Mark Stone, left wing Max Pacioretty and defenseman Alec Martinez.

There was a blockbuster trade for center Jack Eichel. A successful All-Star Weekend at T-Mobile Arena. An attempted — and ultimately voided — deal to send left wing Evgenii Dadonov to Anaheim. A season-ending shoulder surgery for goaltender Robin Lehner that was announced one day after he served as the team’s backup Sunday.

“I haven’t been on a lot of teams that have dealt with what we’ve dealt with this year,” Eichel said.

That’s not even considering all that took place before the season, such as the trades of fan favorites Marc-Andre Fleury and Ryan Reaves. It all resulted in a disappointing campaign.

Still, the Knights controlled their playoff destiny with four games remaining, but lost three consecutive shootouts to fall out of contention. They had nothing to play for against the Blues, who had a chance to get home-ice advantage in their first-round playoff series with Minnesota.

“The guys played hard,” coach Pete DeBoer said. “Again, not the greatest circumstances, as we know. But we didn’t mail it in. We showed up, like we did most nights this year, and battled hard and found a way to win. There will be time to reflect on the bigger picture, but at least we can feel good about the effort we put in tonight.”

There were glimpses of some of the positives from the Knights’ season against the Blues.

Marchessault tied his career high by scoring his 30th goal. He’s the third player in team history to reach that mark after Karlsson and left wing Max Pacioretty.

Whitecloud finished a breakout season with a goal and an assist. His eight goals, 11 assists and 19 points were career highs.

Goalender Logan Thompson ended his rookie season with a win despite making only 14 saves in his fourth start in six nights. He was 10-5-3 with a .914 save percentage and a 2.68 goals-against average, ensuring plenty of future NHL games.

Those efforts — along with career seasons from center Chandler Stephenson, right wing Nicolas Roy, left wing William Carrier and defenseman Shea Theodore — were some of the highlights.

But the Knights also had plenty of flaws.

They finished with 244 goals allowed, the most in franchise history. Their goaltending was inconsistent after a Jennings Trophy-winning season in 2021. Their special teams were below average. The power play was ranked 25th, tying the franchise low. The penalty kill was 21st.

It added up to a 43-31-8 record that was nowhere near as good as the Knights hoped when they entered the season with Stanley Cup aspirations. They will have a long summer instead to think about what went wrong and how to correct it.

“I’m already excited for next year,” Eichel said. “It’ll be a good opportunity for us to prove ourselves again.”

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.