Mark Stone injured in Golden Knights’ loss to Lightning

There could person been a beardown last-day-before-vacation vibe to Tuesday’s crippled for the Golden Knights.

That wasn’t the case, arsenic the Knights turned successful a beardown effort against the Tampa Bay Lightning. But a second-period lapse and 2 mistakes were excessively overmuch to overcome.

The Golden Knights allowed 3 unanswered goals and mislaid 4-3 to the NHL leaders successful beforehand of an announced assemblage of 18,217 astatine T-Mobile Arena.

“When you’re playing the two-time Stanley Cup champion, you’ve got to person everybody pulling successful the aforesaid absorption and you can’t marque mistakes,” manager Pete DeBoer said. “We didn’t play a cleanable game, but we played a hellhole of a game. Usually you play that game, you’re going to win.”

The Knights outshot Tampa Bay 41-19, but saw their five-game winning streak snapped arsenic the Lightning rallied from a two-goal deficit. Lightning guardant Steven Stamkos scored the winning extremity connected a powerfulness play with 9:47 remaining.

Mark Stone scored 2 goals for the Knights earlier leaving with 13 minutes remaining successful the 2nd play due to the fact that of an evident injury.

Nicolas Roy scored a spectacular extremity astatine 8:10 of the 2nd period, dancing done 3 defenders to enactment the Knights up 3-1.

But Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Anthony Cirelli scored 43 seconds isolated precocious successful the 2nd for Tampa Bay to necktie the crippled 3-3.

The crippled was the lone 1 played successful the NHL, arsenic the league and NHL Players’ Association agreed to statesman the vacation interruption aboriginal aft aggregate games this week were postponed for COVID-related reasons.

“A batch of positives,” winger Reilly Smith said. “It’s conscionable pugnacious not to prime up points successful a crippled similar that.”

Here are 3 takeaways from the game:

1. Playing short-handed

It was astir inevitable that the Knights would consciousness the effects of COVID-19 aft dodging immoderate affirmative tests connected their past roadworthy trip, and it showed up Tuesday.

Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo and guardant Evgenii Dadonov were placed successful the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol aft the greeting skate, and each missed his archetypal crippled of the season.

Lightning manager Jon Cooper besides entered protocol little than 2 hours earlier opening faceoff and handed disconnected duties to adjunct Derek Lalonde.

The Knights were without their full apical antiaircraft pair, arsenic Nic Hague was scratched with an undisclosed injury. Goalie Robin Lehner besides was a scratch due to the fact that of a lower-body injury, and some players are considered time to day.

Defenseman Daniil Miromanov was recalled from Henderson and drew into the lineup connected the 3rd defence brace alongside Ben Hutton.

2. Stone leaves early

Stone appeared to debar wounded successful the archetypal play erstwhile Lightning guardant Mathieu Joseph mislaid an borderline successful the neutral portion and undercut the Knights’ captain.

He hobbled to the seat astir 4 minutes in, but didn’t miss a displacement and scored a power-play extremity midway done erstwhile Max Pacioretty’s walk deflected successful disconnected Stone’s skate.

Stone scored the Knights’ 2nd extremity aft Chandler Stephenson drew 3 Lighting defenders and fed him successful the slot astatine 1:41 of the 2nd period. But Stone didn’t instrumentality a displacement for the last 12:59 of the 2nd and was not connected the seat for the 3rd period, either.

There was thing connected Stone’s last displacement to bespeak helium was injured, and DeBoer hinted helium mightiness person aggravated the upper-body wounded that kept him retired of Sunday’s crippled astatine the Islanders.

3. Nicolas McDavid

Roy scored arguably the extremity of the play for the Knights successful the 2nd play with a stickhandling show that was reminiscent of Edmonton’s Connor McDavid.

The Knights guardant took connected 3 Lightning defenders and made a ridiculous determination that dropped perennial All-Star defenseman Victor Hedman. He past divided the defence and flipped a forehand past Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy for a 3-1 pb astatine 8:10.

It was Roy’s sixth extremity of the season, matching his full from past play that was a vocation high. He besides has 15 points successful 29 games, equaling his precocious acceptable past season.

Contact David Schoen astatine dschoen@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ connected Twitter.