FSM Essential Recap: Golden Knights vs Maple Leafs - Game 9

FSM Essential Recap: Golden Knights vs Maple Leafs – Game 9

Franchise Sports Media

The Vegas Golden Knights opened their four-game road trip with a 4-0 loss against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Vegas came into the game with another significant injury, this time to original misfit William Karlsson. Due to the injury, Vegas claimed Michael Amadio from Toronto on Saturday, and he made his Golden Knights debut against his old team.

Due to the slew of injuries, the Golden Knights lineup was almost entirely unrecognizable Tuesday night. Robin Lehner was excellent and kept the Golden Knights in the game for as long as he could, but the Maple Leaf’s star players were able to break through eventually.

The Maple Leafs got out to a scorching start, and it continued throughout the period. Toronto completely outplayed Vegas in the first period as they out-score chanced the Golden Knights 16-1 via Natural Stat Trick.

Near the end of the period, the Maple Leafs got on the board with a beautiful goal from Mitch Marner. Marner was fed a pass from Auston Mathews in the slot and hit circle in front of Lehner. Marner slotted it past Lehner without giving him a chance.

“I saw the guy to my right,” Marner said. “I just tried to pull it away from him and then tried to pull it away from Lehner. “It went in, and it’s obviously a good feeling to see it go in.”

The Golden Knights’ offense was snakebitten once more.

It was more of the same in the second period as the Golden Knights struggled to get any kind of offense generated and the Maple Leafs finally broke through Lehner.

The Golden Knights are still looking for their first powerplay goal of the season, and they are in dangerous territory, having now gone eight games without scoring a powerplay goal. The Buffalo Sabres hold the record for the most extended number of games without scoring a powerplay goal to start the season with ten games. VGK had two power plays in the period, but the drought bubbled to 0-17. And then eventually went to 0-for-18.

Mathews got on the board twice in the period with a rocket of a wrist shot on the power play, and a deflection passed Lehner in the dying moments of the period. William Nylander got on the board early in the third period with a wrist shot that beat Lehner’s far side.

The Golden Knights began to wake up a little in the third period and outshot the Maple Leafs twelve to eight. But it was too little too late for the Golden Knights who dropped the game 4-0. Jack Campbell posted his fifth career shutout with 26 saves.

Vegas was without several top players because of injuries, including captain Mark Stone (lower body), Max Pacioretty (broken left foot), William Karlsson (broken foot), Alex Tuch (shoulder), Zach Whitecloud (lower body), and Nolan Patrick (undisclosed).

The Golden Knights are one injury away from throwing a guy off the street out on a fourth line. Vegas is in Ottawa on Thursday to face the Senators. The puck drops at 4:00 pm and can be seen on AT&T SportsNet.