Knights seek killer instinct in final game of homestand

Finishing them off is another story.

The Knights once again showed a lack of a killer instinct Friday night, as they allowed the Buffalo Sabres to score four times in the final 15 minutes for a 5-2 victory after Jack Eichel gave the Knights a 2-1 lead early in the third period.

The Knights (20-6-5) have now led in the third period of all three games on this homestand. They eventually needed overtime to win the first two and lost in regulation in the third.

Coach Bruce Cassidy said his team’s overall game is still good, but the trend is concerning.

“It’s the breakdowns like when we’re up 2-1 (Friday) where we should be better and recognizing we need to put the game away,” he said after practice Saturday. “It’s only a one-goal lead, and give Buffalo credit, but that’s where I’d like to see our team, and have seen our team a lot, take the step to say, ‘We’ve played well but not great, had some good and some bad, now let’s finish this game.’ ”

The Knights will look to buck the trend Sunday when they host Ottawa (11-14-0) at 5 p.m. at T-Mobile Arena to close the homestand.

On the positive side, the Knights haven’t really paid a price. They are in first place and had taken a point out of nine straight games before Friday.

But they aren’t really competing against the division. This is a team that is just trying to find its best game by the time the playoffs come around.

Defenseman Nicolas Hague is confident that the Knights will get things figured out.

“We’re always good at that,” he said after practice. “You come in and address what needs to be addressed, look at what needs to be looked at. Take it, learn from it, then cut it loose and move on.

“There’s no secret around here to what makes us a good team, and we know when we’re not at that level. We’re good at knowing what we did wrong, understanding we can do better, moving on and coming back with more of an effort that better represents us.”

The biggest concern at the moment is puck management. There were times in the second period and even more so in the third against Buffalo when the Knights made bad decisions about when to pursue a rush as opposed to dumping the puck in and battling below the goal line.

That led to some rush opportunities the other way for the Sabres that they were able to take advantage of, much like the Flames and Sharks before them.

“We feel like puck management is the issue, so let’s clean that up first,” Cassidy said.

It’s certainly something the Knights want to work on, but Cassidy knows there’s only so much that can be done outside the structure of a live game.

“It’s hard to work on puck management at practice,” he said. “That’s an individual decision in the heat of the moment when you have to make a good play or not.”

The Knights learned what can happen when they don’t, even against an inferior opponent. Losing to the Sabres isn’t something they wanted to see happen, but it’s also not a game they are going to spend a whole lot of time lamenting.

“We want to avoid that at all costs, but we’re also human,” Hague said. “We’re not going to play our best game every night. You see it around the league, and it can creep into anyone’s game at some point, you just try to limit it. But because we know how good we are and we’re all professionals, we’re not going to sit around and sulk about it for long. We kind of get back to focusing on the next game and getting back to what we know makes us a good hockey team.”

Captain Mark Stone said after Friday’s game that he wanted to see the Knights play a complete 60 minutes at their best before the three-game road trip that starts Tuesday in Carolina.

Cassidy agreed that would be a positive development.

“It would be good to get the focus back on a good, consistent, solid game,” he said. “A full 60 minutes like against Vancouver or Washington or Dallas. A little bit more consistent than the games we’ve had this week.”

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.