After blowing a two-goal lead in the third period, the Vegas Golden Knights rallied to beat the Blues 5-4 in Overtime.
“There's a lot of back and forth when we play them.” Reilly Smith said. “A lot of late goals and overtime goals. That’s not really how you want to play but we just have to find a way to win those games.”
Mark Stone and Jonathan Marchessault opened the scoring in the first period just 41 seconds apart. Ryan O’Reilly got the Blues on the board early in the second period, but Tomas Nosek scored five minutes later to restore the two-goal lead for the VGK. The VGK goal came shortly after head coach Pete DeBoer decided to move Nosek up to the third line to play with Alex Tuch and Nic Roy. Vladimir Tarasenko scored shortly after Nosek’s goal to cut the Vegas lead in half. The Golden Knights took a 3-2 lead into the second intermission.
Entering the third period, Zach Sanford put in a rebound on the power play to tie the game at 3. The Blues would get another power play off a trip from Dylan Coghlan six minutes later. David Perron put home his 11th goal of the season on that power play to give the Blues their first lead of the night. The lead was short lived though, as just 47 seconds later, Alec Martinez netted his second goal of the season to tie the game back up at 4. Late in the period, the Golden Knights had two odd man rush opportunities but were unable to cash in on either. The two teams entered overtime for a fourth-straight time against one another.
Just under a minute into overtime, Blues defenseman Torey Krug tripped up Reilly Smith in the neutral zone and gave Vegas their third power play opportunity of the game. Vegas had not scored on the power play in their last five games. This time however, the Vegas power play woke up. After a lackluster first minute of their man advantage, Martinez, Marchessault, and Smith combined for a beautiful tic-tac-goal play to give the Golden Knights a 5-4 win.
“We needed [a power play goal],” head coach Pete DeBoer said. “[The] power play is a lot about confidence and feeling good about hopping over the boards. Obviously the longer a streak goes where you’re not scoring you lose a bit of that mojo. Hopefully this breaks us out of it and we can build on that.”
For the Golden Knights, this win marks the first time they have beaten the Blues in St. Louis. The win tonight also keeps the Golden Knights perfect when entering the third period with the lead (11-0-0). They get another opportunity to extend their lead in the Honda West Division tomorrow as they face off against the Blues again.
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