Time for some good news. The Vegas Golden Knights can play better. A lot better.
Want some more silver lining? A split is always the goal for a team when they open a best-of-seven series on the road and Vegas is still positioned to accomplish this feat.
Certainly, there were depressing elements from Wednesday's 5-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks from a VGK fan perspective. Vegas was undisciplined and gave the Sharks five power-play opportunities. The Golden Knights only had 10 shots through two periods and lost the possession battle en route to giving up five goals. The Golden Knights had 12 giveaways and just three takeaways as well as producing only 57 shot attempts.
At the end of the day, the woes of the Golden Knights were self-inflicted. This was more about what Vegas failed to do as a team rather than what the Sharks did to the Golden Knights.
Not to be misconstrued, San Jose was good. Excellent, in fact. But Vegas produced far too little push back. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare said after the game, "No one said this was going to be easy."But Vegas did make it easy for the Sharks. They allowed San Jose to set up camp in the offensive zone. They failed to put any pressure on San Jose goalie Martin Jones until late in the game.