Down 4-1 after two periods Thursday night, Bruce Cassidy turned to an unconventional tactic: a video session during the second intermission. The Golden Knights coach, in his 10-year NHL career, had never tried it midgame before.
“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.”
The session focused on defensive breakdowns that allowed the Dallas Stars to erupt for three goals after Keegan Kolesar tied the game 1-1 at 4:07 of the second period. The Knights managed only three shots after Kolesar’s goal.
“I could draw it on the board, but you might as well look at it,” Cassidy said. “We’ll look at it tomorrow, so we save them some time.”
The video worked as a catalyst. Vegas rallied for three third-period goals, including Mitch Marner’s equalizer with 48.7 seconds left, to force overtime. But the Knights fell 5-4 in a shootout at T-Mobile Arena, dropping to 1-6 in shootouts this season.
“We’re a team that pushes back and has a lot of resilience,” said Marner. “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.”
The Knights (25-14-14) have now lost five of six after a seven-game winning streak, with four games left before the Winter Olympics break. They are 4-12-9 when trailing after two periods. Tuesday in Montreal, they lost 3-2 in overtime after leading 1-0 after the first.
Cassidy, searching for consistency, said: “You know the definition of insanity, so we’re going to try and fix it. 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.”
Despite the struggles, Vegas remains in first place in the Pacific Division with two games in hand on Edmonton, thanks to 14 overtime losses that earned points.
