The Vegas Golden Knights fell short of their own expectations by being eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers in Wednesday's 1-0 overtime loss.
"Every year you don't win feels like a year wasted," said forward William Karlsson. "I believed in this team, and we got knocked out. Hopefully, in a few days, I'll just keep looking forward to next year."
It was a sentiment reiterated by veteran defenseman and two-time Stanley Cup champion Alex Pietrangelo.
"Any time you have a good team, you just feel like you didn't really finish what you set out to do," Pietrangelo said. "We got a helluva team, a helluva locker room. It's disappointing. It's a hard league to win in, and we know that, we knew that going in. So it's just disappointing."
The Golden Knights won the Pacific Division for the fourth time in eight seasons with a 50-22-10 record.
Vegas dropped two overtime games in the five-game defeat, and the Golden Knights failed to score a goal in the last two contests of the series.
"Unfortunately, we lost too many close games," Karlsson said. "I think that was the difference. We don't score the last two games. Yeah, that's the difference."
Head coach Bruce Cassidy thinks his team had another level to give in the series.
"I wouldn't say it was our best through the series," Cassidy said. "So, that's where I'm going to walk away and say, 'What could I have done better to get the best out of this group?' That's on me."
Pietrangelo put the onus on Vegas for the lack of goal scoring in key moments.
"I mean, we had chances, we just couldn't really capitalize," Pietrangelo said. "It's more on us than, probably, them."
Vegas put 23 shots on goal in Monday's 3-0 defeat, and managed 24 in the series finale Wednesday, while the Oilers had 32 shots on goal in both efforts.
The Golden Knights were outchanced 25-19 in Game 5, according to Natural Stat Trick, but high-danger attempts at five-on-five were an even eight apiece.
The Oilers are the first team through to the conference finals.
