There are no more unbeatens in the NHL. The Golden Knights suffered their first loss as they fell in overtime to the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3. As we know the Golden Knights are the first defending champions in the NHL to start a season to start a season with a record win streak. The Golden Knights also entered the day as the only undefeated team in the league as both the Avalanche and the Bruins lost Thursday night. But that changed Friday afternoon. VGK is now 7-0-1 after the overtime loss.
It was a sloppy game for VGK as they wound up with 14 giveaways in the game.
In the Nevada Day matinee, VGK scored on its first two shots on goal. The Golden Knights opened the scoring early with Pavel Dorofeyev scoring off a pass from Michael Amadio. It was his first goal of the season. Then VGK scored on a deflection of a Shea Theodore shot by William Karlsson. That made it 2-0. But Ryan Donato scored for the Blackhawks to make it 2-1. Conor Bedard scored his third goal of the season to tie the game at 2-2 at the end of the first period. The second period was scoredless but then Shea Theodore gave up the puck in his own end and Tyler Raddysh scored the go-ahead goal to make it 3-2 Blackhawks. Theodore made up for a couple of bad turnovers by tieing the game at 3 apiece. The Hawks couldn’t clear the zone on that score. Regulation ended tied at 3.
William Karlsson had a tripping penalty early in O.T. It was the first penalty on the Golden Knights. And Chicago cashed in on Philipp Kurashev’s first goal of the season. Chicago won the game 4-3. Adin Hill also suffered his first loss of the season.
Bruce Cassidy said he felt his team just mismanaged pucks all night. He said there were some no look backhand passes, didn’t execute and misfired on other ones. "We did not execute at an NHL level."
Shea Theodore now has points in four straight games – he has nine points with three goals in the last six games. William Karlsson now leads the team with nine points through eight games.
The Golden Knights traveled to L.A. Friday night. They play the tail end of the back-to-back against the Kings Saturday night.