The response by the team against the Wild was as good as coach Pete DeBoer could have asked for. The team put up six goals in route to a 6-4 victory.
“Obviously Friday wasn’t our best. We had a chance to win that game,” Golden Knights captain Mark Stone said. “Tonight, I don’t think we let anything rattle us… Overall it was a good team win. We knew if we could sustain 60 minutes, we would be the fresher team.”
Zach Whitecloud opened the scoring for the Golden Knights in the first period. After Stone made a fantastic play at the blue line to deny the Wild on an exit, the puck found its way to Whitecloud’s stick. He made no mistake burying the shot over the blocker of Cam Talbot from the right hash mark to make it 1-0.
The Wild answered back shortly after. On a delayed penalty, Alex Goligoski fired a shot from the high slot past the out-stretched glove of Robin Lehner to tie the game at one.
The Golden Knights struck next on the power play with 2:45 remaining in the first period. On a bang-bang play, Evgenii Dadanov scored his eighth goal of the season off a gorgeous feed from Stone to restore the lead for Vegas.
The lead did not last forever though. With less than a minute left in the period, Dadanov was called for a high-sticking penalty on Kevin Fiala.
The Wild made the most of this opportunity and Mats Zuccarello scored with 0.6 seconds left in the period to tie the game at two.
Nine seconds into the second period, Nick Bjugstad scored on the Wild’s ninth shot of the game to take a 3-2 lead.
Six minutes later, Zach Whitecloud added his second goal on the night to tie the game back at three. The goal came off some impressive work along the half-wall by Dadanov. Whitecloud then skated in all alone and went bar-down on Talbot.
Max Pacioretty added his 10th goal in his last 10 games on a breakaway to give the Golden Knights a 4-3 lead. Pacioretty’s goal set a new franchise record with a six-game goal streak. The record was previously held by Erik Haula and William Karlsson at five.
After Pacioretty’s goal, things started to get a little scary for the VGK. Nic Hague was called for a cross check penalty after a minor disagreement with Ryan Hartman. 42 seconds into the penalty kill, Alex Pietrangelo was called for a slash on Joel Eriksson Ek. This gave the Wild a 1:18 five-on-three power play.
In the last three games, the VGK penalty kill had struggled immensely. They had allowed three power play goals on three attempts to the Dallas Stars, two power play goals on three attempts against the Flyers, and were one-for-two against the Wild up until this point of the game.
The penalty killers came up huge and despite the Wild spending the entire five-on-three in the zone, nothing came of it. They killed off both penalties, but immediately after, Zach Whitecloud was called for a slash on Eriksson Ek.
That penalty was killed off as well and as he came out of the box, Stone sprung Whitecloud in for a breakaway. Looking for his first hat-trick of his career, Whitecloud deked but could not elevate the puck over the outstretched leg of Talbot.
“Honestly [The hat-trick] didn’t even go through my mind,” Whitecloud said, much to the chagrin of both Stone, and the media in the press conference. “I was just trying to score… You have the chance to help the team go ahead, especially at that time of the game… I was just trying to help the team out.”
“It was going through my mind,” Stone laughingly said.
Entering the third period, the Wild struck quickly once again to tie the game at four. Lehner attempted to make a glove save on a shot that was going wide but misplayed the puck and it trickled past him.
The Golden Knights did not let that shake their confidence, however. Just over three minutes later, Mark Stone scored nine seconds into a power play to restore the Golden Knights lead.
The team held the Wild to just four shots on net in the final fifteen minutes of play. In the final minute, the Wild came inches from tying the game. With one minute and 40 seconds left in the game, Kevin Fiala ripped a shot through traffic and off the cross bar.
That was as close as the Wild would come. With 27 seconds remaining in the game, Alex Pietrangelo scored from 200-feet away to give the VGK a 6-4 victory.
Chandler Stephenson, who missed the previous game to attend his late grandmother’s funeral, finished the game with four assists. That marks the highest single-game point total of his career.
“I think she was helping me tonight with that one,” Stephenson said. “I’ve never had four points before, so something needs to be said about that.”
The offensive production from Sunday night’s game masks a major issue the Golden Knights have ran into over the last few games: goaltending. While Lehner did get the win in this game, it was far from his best performance on the season.
In his first 14 starts this season, Robin Lehner was spectacular. Despite the score getting away from him at times, he made big save after big save and kept the Golden Knights in games they had no business being in.
In his last seven starts however, he has given up three or more goals in five games. It is not just the number of goals he has given up; it is how they have been scored. It just seems like he is a little off his game right now, which is something the Golden Knights cannot afford at this moment. The Pacific Division is a tight race right now, and the Golden Knights need to start putting together a group of wins if they want to put some distance between them and the cut line for the playoffs.
This slump could be due to him playing too much, or a number of other things. Regardless of the reasons though, Lehner needs to get back to his game. Following the game against Minnesota, he seemed confident he will get back there.
“I’m very confident [in my game right now],” Lehner said. “There’s ebbs and flows sometimes when it comes to bounces, but obviously not up to my standards as of late. The good thing is we are finding ways to win through this, and I know it will turn. I’ve been through this stuff before. I am not worried about it.”
The Golden Knights improved to 3-1 on this short homestand, picking up six of a possible eight points in that span. They head back east for a four-game swing before returning home to play nine of their next 10 at the Fortress.
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