In the first game since Monday for the Vegas Golden Knights, they came out on top against an inferior team in the Anaheim Ducks.
William Karlsson scored the game-winner with 1:37 remaining in overtime, his second of the game, to give the Golden Knights a 3-2 victory at Honda Center on Saturday.
Early on in the first period, Vegas was buzzing in their offensive zone. I am not sure if the Anaheim Ducks touched the puck during the first two minutes of play. Vegas continued to press throughout the beginning stages of the game, but to no avail early.
The Ducks finally got their first shot on goal at the 4:54 mark of the first period, and Marc-Andre Fleury quite easily took care of the shot from Jakob Silfverberg.
Neither team generated much until Rickard Rakell beat Fleury at the 10:09 mark, the goal was assisted by Cam Fowler and was shot from the faceoff dot from Fleury’s right. Cody Glass had a rough moment during that shift, he couldn’t find his man and it ended up being Rakell and he walked in uncontested on Fleury.
Vegas got a power play at the 13:08 mark after Ryan Getzlaf tripped Mark Stone, however they were not able to land a shot on the power play. They didn’t have a shot on goal for over eight minutes to this point.
After a great save from Fleury on the other end, Alex Pietrangelo tied the game at the 16:28 mark. Pietrangelo’s second goal of the season was assisted by Shea Theodore and Keegan Kolesar, and was on the first Vegas shot in a good amount of time. Carrier had a good screen in front.
Gibson has struggled as of late and this game extended his personal four game losing streak to five, where he has given up now 18 goals during that stretch.
Neither team had many opportunities through the rest of the first period, and we end the first tied at one a piece.
The second period was off to a very slow start until around the 8:05 mark when Marc-Andre Fleury made a couple of really good saves on Max Jones.
At the 9:10 mark, Pietrangelo sent a hail mary pass to a darting Karlsson down the middle. Karlsson beat Gibson with a nice shot above his glove while falling down.
The third period started off with the Ducks pressing hard, Jones had another great chance but was stymied by Fleury.
About 1:20 into the third period, Alec Martinez got his stick in the way of a wrist shot from Jakob Silfverberg, and unfortunately the puck caught Martinez in the face. Martinez would eventually return to the game.
The Ducks tied it after a weird bounce off of a stick and Adam Henrique tucked it past Fleury at the 11:05 mark. The Golden Knights challenged for a missed game stoppage of high sticking, but to no avail. The goal stood and the Ducks went to the power play because of the delay of game on the Vegas bench.
Fortunately for Vegas, they were able to kill the penalty with relative ease, only allowing one shot on the Anaheim man advantage.
One minute into the overtime, Fleury kept the game alive with a massive right pad save on Lundestrom off of a rebound.
Vegas pressed and Pacioretty had a near miss from a great pass from Mark Stone.
After some pressure from Anaheim in the Vegas zone, and another great save from Fleury. Theodore handled the rebound, sent it to Reilly Smith and in transition, Karlsson gets the winner on a breakaway backhand shot to beat Gibson.
Karlsson with his second goal of the game and his most important one of the season to this point. Pietrangelo had his best game in quite a while with his first multi-point game since Jan. 20. Fleury was once again stellar and gets another win as Vegas moves to 12-4-1 reclaiming the top spot in the West Division.
The Golden Knights play again against the Minnesota Wild on Monday at 7 p.m. T-Mobile Arena will allow fans for the first time this season that night, which is very exciting.