No OT issues this time as Knights struggle in 4-1 loss to Canadiens

LAS VEGAS — For the fans of the Vegas Golden Knights, they didn’t have to sweat the prospects of their team participating in overtime Friday.They can thank Sam Montembeault for that.The Montreal Canadiens goaltender stopped 29 of the 30 shots he faced as the visitors rolled into town and left 4-1 victors. The Knights, who have not performed at a very high standard for much of November, continue to struggle in most areas of their game.“Right now, we’re chasing a lot of games,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “It takes too much energy. We need to play with more urgency when it’s 1-0 or 0-0.”Some might try to use the 1 p.m. start at T-Mobile Arena as an excuse. But the Knights usually don’t play well in matinees and lately, they haven’t played well period. You could drop the puck at 3 a.m. and it probably wouldn’t matter.At times, the Knights looked like a bunch of guys in a tryptophan coma after gorging on too much Thanksgiving turkey. And on those rare occasions where they looked like they were on their game, Montembeault was there to close the door. He made a strong case to keep his spot on Team Canada’s Olympic roster as Jordan Binnington’s backup in net the way he performed Friday.“He made some big saves to keep his team in it early,” Cassidy said of Montembeault, who he got to coach last year when Canada was in the 4 Nations Face-Off. “That had something to do with it.”Yes, Mark Stone is back and that’s comforting. He was responsible for the lone Vegas goal Friday when he beat Montembeault with 4:44 remaining in the contest. And rookie forward Braeden Bowman has done fine in his short time with the parent club with four goals and seven points in nine games. But when you’re going bad, coaches like to use the hockey cliche “we have too many passengers” and if Cassidy were to utter that phrase, who could blame him?He didn’t in his postgame remarks Friday. Instead, he defended the team’s play during this stretch — to a point.“I don’t look at it as a bad three weeks,” he said. “We had points in six straight games.”While that’s true, the reality is they have not been good, either individually or collectively. Mitch Marner last scored Nov. 8. That has been his entire goal output for the month of November. He does have eight assists this month but is that a fair point total to expect for someone who is being paid $12 million a year?Of course it isn’t.But Marner isn't the only underachiever. Pavel Dorofeyev also has just one goal this month. Ivan Barbashev has one goal in his last nine games. Brett Howden has two goals for the month while Jack Eichel has three in November. Colton Sissons and Keegan Kolesar have yet to score this year.Normally, you’d look at the upcoming schedule and say it’s the antidote for what has been ailing Vegas. But San Jose, which comes into T-Mobile Saturday night, has played better. So has Chicago, Tuesday’s opponent which wraps up the four-game homestand which so far has been subpar. “I think you need to play to your strength and to where it’s coming through,” Cassidy said in trying to figure out how to get a good portion of this group going. “We’re not going to ask Mitch Marner to be Keegan Kolesar. That’s not happening.”Eichel said it’s up to the players to figure it out.“I thought there were pockets of good hockey,” he said. “But we’re kinda fighting it right now to find the back of the net.“It seems like we’re forcing it a little, then we make a mistake and it’s in our net. So we’ve got clean some things up for sure.”As a team whose passing skills are in its DNA, the need to shoot more constantly comes up after performances such as Friday’s. Eichel, who has been as guilt as anyone when it comes to over-passing the puck, said perhaps a simplification of things is warranted.“We probably need to be more direct with the puck,” he said. “We have an unselfish group in here and that’s not a bad thing. But sometimes, getting pucks and bodies to the net is a good recipe.“The good news is we play in 24 hours so we have a chance to be better (Saturday) night.”