Golden Knights overcome defensive breakdown to assert dominance

Miscommunications defensively are going to happen early in the season across the league. That includes for defensive pairings who have been together for years.

That’s why it was surprising to see defensemen Shea Theodore and Brayden McNabb on the wrong end of the Chicago Blackhawks’ first goal Tuesday that cut the Vegas Golden Knights’ two-goal lead in half.

But the Knights held off Chicago’s expected push in the second period and got back to its game in the 5-2 win.

Tuesday was the 384th time in the regular season the Original Misfits skated with each other. They read off each other better than most.

But the two got tangled up on fourth-line forward Jordan Greenway’s goal that put the Blackhawks on the board midway through the second period.

Greenway took a drop pass from center Ryan Greene with Theodore shadowing him. As Greenway took the pass, Theodore appears to skate back to his zone on the right side. McNabb, thinking he had his off side covered, tried to get Theodore back to cover Greenway.

Greenway had plenty of space to fire a wrist shot past Carter Hart and make it a one-goal game at 12:23 of the second.

“Me and Theo had some miscommunication. We weren’t too happy about that goal,” McNabb said.

Up until that point, the Knights dominated Chicago. They took a 2-0 lead in a first period where they outshot the Blackhawks 15-4.

Chicago was expected to push back in the second. The Blackhawks nearly scored earlier in the period when forward Ryan Donato’s tap-in while falling down rang off the post.

“I thought we played well through the first two, and then we kind of let little details slip, but that’ll happen at the beginning of the season,” Theodore said.

The Knights immediately answered with a push of their own. They hemmed Chicago in its zone, got pucks below the goal line and started putting pressure on the Blackhawks defense.

It paid off less than three minutes later. The 48-second shift that led to Jack Eichel’s goal came after Ivan Barbashev won a board battle to keep the puck alive.

The puck cycled back top to McNabb, whose shot went wide. Barbashev gathered, circled the net and found Eichel with 4:48 to go.

“Vegas has been known as a puck-recovery team,” coach Ryan Craig said. “Can we reattack off that, or get pucks back below the goal line and go to the slot or the crease? That goal was a good example.”

Another response came in the third period. After Patrick Kane cut the lead to 3-2 off a turnover, the Knights’ fourth line created a 4-on-2 chance.

Defenseman Noah Hanifin found a soft spot after taking the pass from Nic Dowd and snapped home his first goal since Dec. 9.

It wasn’t a full 60-minute effort. Those will never come early in the season. But the Knights controlled play for a majority of it and got back on the horse when the chance presented itself.

“It kind of got away from us a little bit in the second, but we dialed it back in,” McNabb said.