Golden Knights' Cassidy: I'm not sure we'd beat Coyotes with 24 giveaways

The Arizona Coyotes were just minding their own business, likely lamenting another lengthy offseason and wondering about the future of their franchise. Then, Bruce Cassidy caught them with a stray.

"To me, the (biggest indicator of our lack of) desperation was we had 24 giveaways tonight," the Golden Knights head coach said after the Dallas Stars defeated his club 4-2 in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final to cut Vegas' series lead to 3-2.

"I'm not sure you're beating the Arizona Coyotes in January with 24 giveaways," Cassidy continued. "No disrespect to Arizona, but it's not the right way to play. ... We're trying to go to the Stanley Cup Final against a desperate team, so to me, that's the whole game right there."

Vegas committed 15 more giveaways than Dallas on Saturday night, with defenseman Zach Whitecloud coughing up a game-high four. Forward Chandler Stephenson, who scored in the second period, made three.

Jason Robertson - who answered Stephenson's goal with one of his own - committed two giveaways for the victors. No other Stars skater committed more than one.

The Golden Knights took a pair of leads in the loss, but the Stars tied it quickly both times - first on Luke Glendening's first-period tally less than two minutes after Ivan Barbashev opened the scoring, and then on Robertson's marker two minutes and nine seconds after Stephenson gave Vegas a 2-1 advantage.

Ty Dellandrea then potted a pair of goals in under 90 seconds midway through the third period to propel the Stars to victory.

Vegas did have more takeaways than Dallas in the game, winning that category 14-7.