Red Wings complete underwhelming homestand with loss to Vegas

Detroit - What could have been a successful five-game homestand for the Red Wings turned out to be just average.

Vegas scored early Saturday, and never lost control, as it defeated the Wings 4-1.

That left the Wings (11-7-5) with a 2-2-1 record on this homestand, earning five of a possible 10 points. Not bad, but the Wings were hoping for more.

Especially with a difficult four-game trip beginning Sunday in Columbus.

Just an OK homestand, but nothing much more than that.

"OK is exactly the word," coach Derek Lalonde said. "If you look back on it, it's a little frustrating, but a little bit of reality of where we're at. The guys compete and the will and want (is there) right now, but if you look at the homestand, we got 2-0-1 against three teams sitting outside of the playoff bubble right now and we go 0-2 against two teams, elite teams, and unfortunately we need to flip that a little bit."

The two losses to Toronto and Vegas, two Stanley Cup contenders, showed the gap between those teams and the Wings.

"Our margin for error is small to begin with just who we are and where we're at," Lalonde said. "It's even less against real good teams. It' going to be frustrating because this is going to look like the underlying numbers similar to Toronto, and there's going to be nerd telling us we should have won that game on expected goals but that doesn't happen against real good teams. They don't need much for plays."

Oskar Sundqvist (power play) had the Wings' goal, while goaltender Ville Husso stopped 21 shots.

Jack Eichel, Jonathan Marechessault (power play), Phil Kessel and Reilly Smith (empty net) had Vegas goals, and goalie Adin Hill stopped 24 shots.

Kessel's fifth goal gave Vegas (18-7-1) a 3-1 lead at 16:32 of the second period.

Just as the Wings' power play expired, the Knights' Nicolas Roy stripped the puck from Lucas Raymond and launched an outlet pass to Kessel, who was coming out of the penalty box.

Kessel skated in on a breakaway and snapped a shot past Husso.

"Kessel is going to make us pay and he did," captain Dylan Larkin said. "That one hurt because we're trying to tie it up and we go down (3-1)."

BOX SCORE: Golden Knights 4, Red Wings 1

Sundqvist had just cut the Knights' lead to 2-1 with his fourth goal and third in two games. Dominik Kubalik found Sundqvist alone in front of the crease and Sundqvist knocked the puck past Hill.

"They scored at costly times," Larkin said. "Timely goals, and it kind of killed us. We couldn't manage to find one and we had plenty of looks in the (offensive) zone. Just another of those games where we're real close but it's not good enough to get a result and it hurts."

Vegas opened the scoring on Eichel's 13th goal.

Chandler Stephenson wheeled in the corner and threw the puck out front, where Kessel, alone at the post, tapped the puck past Husso just 1:04 into the game.

That lead held until Vegas extended the margin to 2-0 on Marchessault's power-play goal.

After the Wings' rush was thwarted on one end, Vegas' Mark Stone started a break the other way, with Stone finding Shea Theodore, who found Marchessault trailing. Marchessault snapped a shot past Husso at 7:16 of the second period.

"We don't really shoot ourselves in the foot like we have in the past, but timely goals, and that's going to happen in any game," Larkin said. "We're right there but we have to find a way to start getting two points out of nights like this."

ted.kulfan@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @tkulfan