Golden Knights eye improved defense, return to winning vs. Blues

To pull out of their recent downturn, the Vegas Golden Knights must clean up their play in their own zone.

They are 1-4-2 in their last seven games coming into their contest against the host St. Louis Blues Friday afternoon. The Golden Knights allowed four or more goals in five of those games.

"When your game goes in the direction that you don't want it to go, it's up to the head coach to fix it," Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. "So, we'll keep working on our defensive play."

Vegas suffered costly lapses during its 4-2 loss to the Nashville Predators Wednesday.

"I think there was a stretch in the first period for eight minutes where we weren't as good as we could be defensively," Cassidy said. "But again, it's a game of what, four penalty kills, 19 shots against? It's not like we're breaking down all over the ice."

Golden Knights forward Brandon Saad, a former Blue, said his team can build off the progress it made at even strength late in that loss.

"We came out early and played well," Saad said. "Gave up a couple bounces, a couple goals. You kind of have to just stop the bleeding, get back to our game. It just seems like when we're getting scored on, we're kind of getting in those ruts.

"You could see in the third we kind of got back to our game, but then it was too late."

The Golden Knights have been playing without defenseman Shea Theodore (upper-body injury) and center Jack Eichel (lower-body injury). Defenseman Brayden McNabb left Wednesday's game with an upper-body injury.

Eichel made the trip to St. Louis, but he and McNabb are questionable for this game.

The Golden Knights won their previous game in St. Louis this season, 4-1 on Nov. 15. Saad, Braeden Bowman, Noah Hanifin and Tomas Hertl scored in that game and Akira Schmid made 22 saves.

Philip Broberg scored the Blues' goal in the previous meeting between these teams and Joel Hofer made 30 saves.

After enjoying a 3-1-1 upturn, the Blues lost their last two games by the combined score of 10-3. The Colorado Avalanche outshot them 43-13 Wednesday night during a 6-1 victory in Denver.

"Especially against (that) team, we need to be more disciplined, play tighter," Blues forward Oskar Sundqvist said. "I think the last 10 minutes of the first period, we clawed back a little bit."

By then, it was too late to rally against the powerful Avalanche.

"We got to start on time," Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. "Our preparation, our practices got to start on time. It's a habit. We haven't developed the necessary habits to be able to start on time regularly."

Compounding the Blues' woes was the absence of forward Pius Suter, one of the team's top defensive forwards. His right ankle injury landed him on the injured list this week along with forwards Dylan Holloway (ankle), Nick Bjugstad (upper body) and Nathan Walker (upper body).

--Field Level Media