‘We feel pretty good’: Knights take NHL’s top offense back on the road

The Golden Knights are taking care of business at home.

They finished off a perfect 4-0 homestand with a 5-0 win over the Calgary Flames on Monday at T-Mobile Arena. The Knights outscored their opponents 24-8 during their sweep.

Now their test is seeing if they can carry that over to the road. The Knights went 0-2-1 their first road trip of the season. They’ll see if they can turn things around away from home when the face the Los Angeles Kings at Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday.

“We’ve got to find out if our game translates on the road, and it should,” coach Bruce Cassidy said.

The Knights (7-2-1) and Kings will meet for the second time in eight days. Center Tomas Hertl scored two goals in a commanding 6-1 win at T-Mobile Arena on Oct. 22.

The Knights’ issue hasn’t been scoring. Their 4.7 goals per game lead the NHL. Their plus-19 goal differential also ranks first.

Their defense is what let them down on the road. The Knights surrendered third-period leads twice their first trip, resulting in a 4-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Oct. 17 and a 4-3 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers on Oct. 19.

“I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be better than how we finished out East, but L.A. will have a lot to say about that,” Cassidy said.

One reason the Knights can be confident as they go back out on the road is the return of center William Karlsson.

The 31-year-old has three points in two games since recovering from an undisclosed injury and has been great defensively. The Knights have outscored opponents 2-0 when Karlsson’s line with right wing Alexander Holtz and left wing Tanner Pearson have been on the ice at five-on-five.

Karlsson’s presence allows Cassidy to take some defensive responsibility off of the team’s top line of center Jack Eichel, captain Mark Stone and left wing Ivan Barbashev. That’s freed up an already dominant offensive group.

Stone leads the NHL with 18 points. Eichel is tied for third with 16. Barbashev’s seven goals lead the team.

“There’s a lot of good stuff on the line,” Stone said. “We kind of expected to have a good start to the season with them.”

The Knights feel they have a lot to build on defensively as well after their win against the Flames. They held Calgary to 16 shots, the fewest they’ve given up in a game since allowing 16 to the Anaheim Ducks on Dec. 31, 2021.

There’s no reason the Knights can’t carry that performance over to Los Angeles.

They’re a difficult lineup to match up against. The fourth line of left wing Cole Schwindt, center Nicolas Roy and right wing Keegan Kolesar were on the ice for three third-period goals Monday.

“We feel pretty good and confident,” Roy said. “I think the whole game we played a lot of time in the offensive zone, and obviously we got rewarded in the third period.”

The Kings, despite being the home team, will be traveling for Wednesday’s game as well given they’re playing on the road against the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday. Cassidy is still expecting a tough game in Los Angeles given how the last meeting went.

“Hopefully our guys don’t think that (it’ll be easy) just because we’ve scored some goals on a run at home,” Cassidy said. “We’ve got to play the right way every night and stick with it.”

Up next

Who: Golden Knights at Kings

Where: Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday

TV: TNT, Max, truTV

Radio: KKGK (98.9 FM, 1340 AM)

Odds: Off