Halfway through season, Golden Knights understand target is on their back
Golden Knights Defeat Flyers 5-2
The start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is still three months away, but teams are starting to circle the Vegas Golden Knights on their schedules.
They are just a point behind the Winnipeg Jets for the league lead and six points ahead of the Los Angeles Kings for the top spot in the Pacific Division; everyone is looking to dethrone the Golden Knights.
On Thursday, Vegas went down 1-0 early to a .500 Philadelphia Flyers team before coming back to win 5-2.
The Golden Knights don’t want to get tied up in stats or standings, but they are aware that their opponents may want to be them more than other teams around the league.
“It’s kind of that point of the year where … some teams are looking at us and saying, ‘Hey, we’re going into their building. We better be ready to play,'” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We have to own that, and we’ve earned that respect around the league, but you got to be prepared every night.”
Despite having a six-game winning streak snapped by Montreal, the Golden Knights are still one of the hottest teams in the league. They’ve won 11 of their last 13 and have scored the most goals out of anyone this season.
It makes sense that everyone they face is looking to slow down that momentum. If Vegas makes a mistake or takes its foot off the gas, its opponent will capitalize.
The Flyers scored 21 seconds into the game and had the lead going into the locker room.
“We weren’t ready to start, so we talked about it,” Cassidy said. “We started the second very, went to the front of the net and got rewarded, now… they know what’s going on. They’re good students of the game.”
The Golden Knights’ game opened up from the second period on out, and they didn’t hang their game out like they did in the first period.
“You’re just going shift by shift and really focus on the next one,” Tanner Pearson said. “The first (period) wasn’t top-notch there, so probably anything would have looked a bit quicker than the first (period).”
Understanding the situation and the problem solving needed to overcome it could be critical for the Golden Knights in the next stretch of the games.
Their next four games will be against teams among the league’s bottom six: Buffalo, San Jose, New York Islanders and New York Rangers. Even Philadelphia, who led Vegas on its heels in the first period, is 22nd in the league. 
On Thursday, Nicolas Hague’s goal kept the Golden Knights going. Cassidy highlighted that as a summary of the team’s collective effort to find ways to win.
“Very rarely is your whole team clicking at the same time, so we got going, and those are the guys (Hague) that are going to start it,” Cassidy said. “They’re the guys we lean on to get us excited.”
