The Vegas Golden Knights scored three times in the first period and received points from 12 separate skaters, as they toppled the Vancouver Canucks 4-1in NHL action Tuesday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Vegas came into the game one point behind Winnipeg for second place in the Western Confernece.
Jonathan Marchessault, Cody Eakin, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Tomas Tatar scored for the winners (46-21-5), while Brandon Sutter scored the lone goal for Vancouver (25-38-9).
Marc-Andre Fleury made seven saves in the first period before leaving for undisclosed reasons. Backup Malcom Subban was brought in for the remainder of the game and made 21 saves for the Golden Knights. Jacob Markstrom stopped 24 shots for the Canucks in the loss.
It did not take long for Vegas to slot one, when William Karlsson, from behind the Canucks’ net, fed a pass to Marchessault in the slot who beat Markstrom glove side, three minutes and 56 seconds into the first for his 23rd goal of the year.
Under a minute later, Vegas extended their lead as Eakin batted a deflected puck out of mid air over top of Markstrom’s shoulder to make it 2-0 Golden Knights.
Cody Eakin bats it out of mid-air to make it 2-0 Golden Knights six minutes into the first. #Canucks pic.twitter.com/JtbAypQA0H
— CanucksArmy (@CanucksArmy) March 21, 2018
With less than a minute to go in the first period, Tyler Nosek brought the puck out from the Canucks’ corner and fed Bellemare in a tight two-on-one. He slotted the puck through Markstrom’s legs to make the score 3-0 Vegas.
The second period was a relatively quiet one until Vegas extended their lead at 5:39, when Tatar fired a wrist shot from the slot, received his own rebound and batted the puck into the back of the net for his 18th goal of the season.
Canucks’ Jake Virtanen got close to breaking the shutout at 15:08 of the third when he wired a shot off of the crossbar.
It was not long after Virtanen’s chance that the Canucks broke the deadlock. At 11:33 of the third period, Sutter swung wide into the Vegas zone, and threw a short-side shot at Subban that squeaked through for his seventh goal of the year.
7⃣th goal for Sutter
ðŸ Pouliot
🎠Biega pic.twitter.com/GngUN6zC8R— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) March 21, 2018
GAME NOTES:
Vancouver: Daniel Sedin has 16 points (8-8-16) over the past 17 games.
Vegas: Defenceman Brayden McNabb played for the Kootenay Ice from 2006 to 2011…defenseman Shea Theodore was born in Langley and played for Yale Secondary in Abbotsford.
@kieranroconnorkieran.oconnor@bpdigital.caLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
