At this time of the season, a glance at the standings doesn’t always tell the full story.
For example, take the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken — who are set to meet Thursday night in Seattle.
The Golden Knights (36-26-16, 88 points), winners of four straight games since John Tortorella replaced Bruce Cassidy as coach, are even with Edmonton in points atop the Pacific Division but are in second place because they have three fewer regulation wins.
The Kraken (32-34-11, 75 points) are clinging to their Western Conference playoff hopes despite six consecutive losses — the last five by multiple goals — and a 1-8-2 record over their past 11 games. The Kraken are in seventh place in the wild-card race. Eighth-place Calgary, with 73 points, already has been eliminated.
The Golden Knights are coming off a 2-1 victory Tuesday at Vancouver, the team that’s last in the NHL’s overall standings.
“Good teams win those games. Teams that don’t get there in the end lose those games,” Tortorella said. “To me, it’s a good sign for the hockey club.”
Fourth-liner Cole Smith scored the go-ahead goal in the third period, defenseman Brayden McNabb also tallied and goaltender Carter Hart made 10 saves.
“We’re doing a really good job of going north, and I think when you do that, you stay out of your end, you don’t play defense, you don’t mess around with the neutral zone, and then you end up playing more offense,” said Golden Knights center Nic Dowd, who assisted on the winning goal. “And then, in my opinion, our (defensemen) are doing a great job of allowing our forwards to play offense by pinching, keeping pucks in, making us go north. I think it starts in our back end.”
Tortorella said he was encouraged that the Golden Knights won with their top point producers — Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner, Mark Stone, Pavel Dorofeyev, Ivan Barbashev and Tomas Hertl — all kept off the scoresheet.
“On a night where it was just a grind, we just stayed with it and we got a goal by a defenseman, we get a goal by Cole Smith, which I think is a really good sign for our team, not leaning on the top guys all the time,” Tortorella said. “Just stayed with it and we checked forward most of the night, certainly wasn’t pretty … we found a way to win.”
The Kraken have won both of their meetings with Vegas this season — 2-1 in Seattle on Oct. 11 and 3-2 on Jan. 31 in Sin City — with the teams also set to meet April 15 in Las Vegas.
Seattle is coming off a 6-2 loss Monday in Winnipeg and a 5-2 defeat Tuesday at Minnesota.
“It’s another loss, and it’s a 5-2 loss and another empty-net goal against, and I sit here and I say, ‘I thought we played a pretty good hockey game,'” Kraken coach Lane Lambert said. “And it’s like, ‘Really? You do?’ It’s another loss, but I do actually think we played pretty good (Tuesday). We out-chanced them and we just can’t get out of our own way.”
A Kraken turnover led to Minnesota’s tying goal 38 seconds into the second period. Seattle later appeared to regain the lead, but it had a goal disallowed on video review because of goaltender interference.
“I liked our first period, and then after that, I mean, we didn’t generate much,” said defenseman Brandon Montour, who scored one of Seattle’s goals.
“Same stuff,” he continued. “Turnover at the blue line, odd-man rush goal. A guy backdoor by himself, goal. Spin around in the slot to a guy backdoor by himself, goal. Empty net. I guess you could say another easy one for the opposing team. Mental mistakes that obviously have been hurting us for the last little bit.”
