Graney: Knights need to stop beating themselves in ‘dog January’

The Golden Knights’ wounds are self-inflicted right now.

Their four-game losing streak. Their 1-5-1 record their past seven games. It’s far more the fault of the Knights than anything their opponents have done.

Coach Bruce Cassidy’s team is fighting it, all right.

Hey. It happens over the course of a long season.

The Knights’ latest defeat came via a 5-4 shootout loss to the St. Louis Blues on Monday at T-Mobile Arena. They once again made the sort of late-period mistakes that lead to losing.

It’s good they have built themselves a cushion when it comes to locking down a playoff spot. But you don’t want these things to linger. You don’t want the same miscues consistently popping up. It’s time to fix things.

Behind the 8-ball

The Blues took the air out of the Knights and their arena with late goals in the first two periods. It happened with 17 seconds left in the first and 31 seconds remaining in the second.

It was similar to what happened Saturday in Chicago, when the Knights dominated the second period only to give up a goal with 1:02 remaining.

“Those are momentum killers,” left wing Brett Howden said. “Just puts us behind the 8-ball even more. Takes a lot of energy to dig yourself out of a hole every night.

“I mean, we’re getting the other team’s best every night. Some teams are scratching and clawing to get back. We have to be more prepared for that coming into games. … Don’t want to be giving up four goals a night, that’s for sure.”

It’s a veteran group. One that should better understand situational hockey. One that shouldn’t be taking tripping penalties in the final minute of a period t0 set up a power-play goal for the other guys. Good teams, which the Knights are, stay away from such moments.

Cassidy afterward said much needs to be better in all areas, including the goaltending.

Made it a strong point, in fact.

And he’s right. A struggling team has to be helped along from time to time by who’s in net.

Adin Hill, who allowed four goals on 28 shots Monday, couldn’t do it.

“You can’t keep giving up four goals a night, because then you need five to win,” Cassidy said. “We just need to be better there. You need big saves to pick you up. This is a game of mistakes. We’re not going to be clean every night. You need to be bailed out sometimes and that hasn’t happened as much as it did, say, two weeks ago. We’ll get it corrected.”

It wasn’t just that. The Knights had two massive opportunities in overtime to pick up the win and two points, but center Jack Eichel missed a tap-in that he makes, well, any other time and captain Mark Stone shot wide on a breakaway.

It was that kind of night.

Cassidy said he thought the Knights left some plays on the table. The two in overtime come to mind.

Again, this is where things are.

A better start

It was a good push to salvage a point, the Knights scoring twice in the final 3:10 of regulation to tie things up. The start could have been better. They didn’t get to their game fast enough.

But they still were right there in the end and you can build off that some. Teams, even the best ones, go through this.

“Nobody is panicking,” Cassidy said. “We’re not in the room tearing down the walls. Right now is a little bit of a dog January. This is the month we have to push through. Maybe some of the teams are playing catch up, so their urgency is higher than ours right now. We’re addressing it. There is no magic switch. You slowly come out of it. When our urgency level is up, we’re a very good team.”

They’re too good not to come out of it.

But it sure would help if they stopped beating themselves.

Self-inflicted wounds don’t play well at this level.

Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.