RECAP: Red Wings fall in Vegas, 6-3

LAS VEGAS -- The Detroit Red Wings couldn’t pull off a sweep of the season series against the Vegas Golden Knights, dropping a 6-3 decision at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night.

“I thought we were good offensively to win and not close enough defensively to win,” Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan said. “We score two power-play goals. You should be able to find your way out of that game with a win, but they got their two [power-play goals] and our penalty kill wasn’t very good. Still giving up way too much. As we play these top-end teams, we see that the mistakes end up in our net a lot quicker than they do maybe against other teams. It gives us an indication of how much we need to cut them down and how much better we need to play in certain areas.”

Goalie Cam Talbot made 29 saves for Detroit (32-31-6; 70 points), which had held Vegas (41-20-8; 90 points) off the scoreboard six days ago in a 3-0 shutout victory at Little Caesars Arena.

“I think we actually had a good start tonight, but kind of fell off later in the [first] period and gave them their power-play goals,” said Alex DeBrincat, who scored his club-leading 32nd goal of the season. “The stuff in front, they just seem to get a lot of pucks through from the top. As forwards, we got to do a better job to block those shots and take away sticks in front of the net. Couple tough goals, but I thought we were in it. We still stayed on it, just couldn’t put enough in the net.”

The Red Wings went on an early power-play opportunity when Michael Rasmussen was tripped by Golden Knights captain Mark Stone, and the visitors capitalized by scoring the game’s first goal. Lucas Raymond tried to get a pass backdoor to DeBrincat, but the puck went off Alex Pietrangelo’s stick and through opposing netminder Adin Hill’s five-hole for a 1-0 lead at 4:47 of the first period. The assists went to Detroit captain Dylan Larkin and Patrick Kane.

Through 69 games this season, Raymond has recorded the third-most goals (24) on Detroit and is tied with Cale Makar for the third-most power-play points (33) in the NHL behind Nikita Kucherov (37) and Nathan MacKinnon (34).

Vegas also scored on its first man-advantage opportunity of the game, as Tomas Hertl drove to the net and finished Stone’s centering feed for his first goal of the night, which made it 1-1 at 11:47 of the first period. Hertl then got his second just 4:45 later, tipping in a shot from Brandon Saad to give the Golden Knights a 2-1 lead.

Nicolas Hauge’s goal with 1:58 remaining in the first period was wiped away after Detroit successfully challenged for offsides, but Nicolas Roy put a wrister past Talbot with three seconds left to push Vegas ahead 3-1.

“That’s sure not the way you want to go into the end of a period,” McLellan said. “You win the challenge, it’s 2-1. You’re on the road against a real good hockey club. You’ll take that, but to give up a lazy board work-type goal like that is unacceptable.”

Picking up his 18th goal of the campaign, Kane made no mistake on a rebound from Moritz Seider’s shot during a power play to cut the Red Wings’ deficit to 3-2 just 1:49 into the second period. Larkin had a secondary helper on his club’s second man-advantage tally of the night.

At 7:07, Stone spotted a rebound and deposited a snap shot to put the Golden Knights back in front by a pair. Then, at 8:02, Hertl completed the hat trick by adding another on the power play to stretch it to 5-2.

DeBrincat went bar-in from the right face-off circle to make it 5-3 at 9:36 of the third period, with the assists going to Kane and Simon Edvinsson.

"There was a lot of good," said DeBrincat, who also leads the Red Wings with a 15.8 shooting percentage this season. "Some bad that we've got to clean up before our next game."

An empty-net goal from Jack Eichel at 18:59 of the third period finalized the 6-3 score for Vegas, who got 28 saves from Hill.

“We’re still there,” Larkin said. “We win a couple here…It’s a hard building to come into. Never been in Utah, but it doesn’t get any easier with Colorado on a back-to-back. We got to start winning some hockey games and taking care of our own business.”

NEXT UP: The Red Wings will pay their first-ever visit to Delta Center to battle the Utah Hockey Club on Monday night.

POSTGAME QUOTES

McLellan on getting more from Detroit’s penalty kill

“The system has changed throughout the season. Maybe that’s a little confusing for the players. We were in position today, but had zero pressure points which we should have and we’re aware of it. That just means players are unsure. We need to work on it.”

Larkin on Saturday’s game

“When you play good teams and you give them chances like that, and they’re all just going in, it’s frustrating. It’s hard on our goalies, but we had enough offense to win that hockey game. When they got their looks, they capitalized on them.”

Larkin on if part of the frustration is because of self-inflicted mistakes

“I guess, yeah. It is. They scored for free on their power play. We didn’t crumble, but they just kept scoring. We didn’t answer. It’s hard to come in this building and expect to score seven goals.”

DeBrincat on if the players are feeling a heightened sense of urgency at this point of the season

“Thirteen games are a lot. Obviously, we can’t take any more games off. I think every game is a must-win now. We got to come in the next game ready to go. These road games are tough. We got to have a good first 10 minutes and go from there. I thought we did that tonight but obviously, couldn’t finish off the job. It’s important to play a full 60 [minutes] and really keep the puck out of our net. It’s tough to win when you give up five, six goals. We got to figure that out."