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Hertl costs his team the game with one of the biggest fails of the season.
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Hertl costs his team the game with one of the biggest fails of the season.

A massive blunder from Tomas Hertl turns a surefire win into an embarrassing loss.

Jonathan Larivee

If there are fans of the Vegas Golden Knights who aren't very happy with Tomas Hertl today I can hardly blame them after what transpired on Saturday during a clash between Hertl's Golden Knights and the Buffalo Sabres.

It looked as though the Golden Knights were set to send the Buffalo Sabres fans in attendance at KeyBank Center home unhappy after they had fought off the Sabres in the third period to maintain a one goal lead, and never was that more true than when the aforementioned Hertl got a partial breakaway on what was an empty Sabres net with only seconds left to go in the game.

In spite of the fact that it looked like Hertl had a clear shot at the empty net, although Buffalo's Peyton Krebs was making a valiant effort to get back, Hertl would opt not to take the shot and instead attempted to make the pass to former Buffalo Sabres star and current Golden Knights teammate Jack Eichel. It is unclear why Hertl opted for the pass to Eichel, perhaps he wanted to give Eichel another goal against his former team, but his attempt at a pass would go horribly wrong and lead to a turnover.

Moments later Buffalo Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin would make Hertl pay dearly for his mistake:

To add insult to injury, not only would the Sabres force overtime thanks to Hertl's blunder and Dahlin's subsequent goal but the Sabres would also come all the way back to eventually steal the win from the Golden Knights in the shoot out.

Hertl is a great NHL player to be sure, and will no doubt have plenty more highlights during his career in the league, but this moment is undoubtedly a career lowlight for the Golden Knights forward.