The Vegas Golden Knights were victorious in their penultimate home game of the 2024-25 regular season after securing a 2-1 win over the Seattle Kraken Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena.
It came down to the wire, but the Golden Knights held on to their one-goal lead in the third period and gutted out the win. Ivan Barbashev and William Karlsson scored for Vegas, while Adin Hill stopped 24 of 25 shots for his 31st win of the season.
The Golden Knights were without several key players, including Jack Eichel, Victor Olofsson, Alex Pietrangelo and Nicolas Hague. However, center Tomas Hertl returned to the lineup for the first time since suffering an upper-body injury March 23 against Tampa Bay. Additionally, Alexander Holtz saw his first game action in more than two months in place of Olofsson, who was out due to illness.
The Golden Knights (48-22-9) are now six points ahead of the Kings (45-24-9) in the standings. Though Los Angeles has a game in hand, Vegas is just two points away from clinching the Pacific Division.
For the second game in a row, Brett Howden centered the top line in place of Eichel, and he helped set up the first goal of the game. It was a bit of a broken play, but with a little help from Kraken rearguard Adam Larsson, Barbashev ended up with the puck on his stick and beat Joey Daccord from the slot 6:58 into the contest.
The Golden Knights extended their lead in the second period when Brayden McNabb broke up a play at the defensive blue line and then let Karlsson and Reilly Smith do their thing. The two connected for the second game in a row when Karlsson finished off a give-and-go at 7:56.
Jared McCann cut the deficit in half with a late goal in the second period, as he and Jordan Eberle put home a loose puck in the crease.
The Kraken continued to push in the third period but were unable to capitalize on two power plays. There were some tense moments for Vegas in the final few minutes of the game. In the final seconds, the Kraken had the puck in front of an empty net, but a diving play by McNabb closed off the crease and prevented Seattle from forcing overtime.
It was one of many key plays by McNabb, who had an outstanding game on a night when the Golden Knights did not bring their best.
McNabb said after the game that he didn’t remember what actually happened on the play.
“I don’t even know, next thing you know I was on the ground, the puck was there and I just pushed it away. I’m gonna have to watch it.”
But his teammates had high praise for the Original Misfit, who recorded an assist, a plus-two rating, two shots, four blocks and two hits in 22:41, which was second on the team behind only Zach Whitecloud (22:56).
“He’s a tremendous player,” Smith said about McNabb. “He protects the front of our net as good as any player I’ve seen. When he’s out there, he makes a lot of plays look very easy, and he’s great at clearing the front of the net, getting in shot lanes, blocking shots. He’s the reason why your penalty kill’s good or the reason why your goals against are good. He’s a huge part of this team, and there’s been a lot of success in this organization because of him.”
Barbashev said McNabb saved a goal and was the reason Vegas closed out the game in regulation.
“He’s been good all season long,” he said. “Just a really good defensive defenseman, and when it’s time for him to do something defensively, you know he’ll do a good job.”
In addition to McNabb, the Karlsson-Smith combination shined, and it continues to gel and excel as their familiar chemistry grows from game to game.
“It definitely gets easier,” Smith said about adjusting to Vegas’ systems. “Every game you get a little more comfortable. I’m not going to say that I’m not thinking out there sometimes, and I’d like to get to that spot. But right now it helps a lot playing with [Karlsson]. It seems like every time I don’t get the puck out, he’s behind me and he does the job.”
The two have been particularly effective in reviving Vegas’ penalty kill, which went 2-for-2 against Seattle and has gone 9-for-10 over the last three games.
“I think up-ice pressure has been great,” McNabb said about the team’s recent success while shorthanded.
But there’s no doubt that Smith has been an integral component in the transformation.
“Adding Reilly has helped a lot,” McNabb said. “He and Karlsson have some good chemistry. We’re causing chaos up-ice, and it’s making it hard on [opponents]. If we can do that to start it, it makes it tougher on them.”
Bruce Cassidy agreed with McNabb’s assessment but added that Vegas has made a few other adjustments that have contributed.
“Let’s get up-ice and buzz a little more and disrupt the rhythm of the entry without giving them odd-man rushes,” he said. “Focus a little more on our faceoff wins and structure on our clears to maybe give the D a little better chance to get it out. … There has to be a certain rhythm to it or you’re going to get caught in between. They found a way to find the right rhythm where if they don’t disrupt, at least they don’t get caught, we’re back in our structure, we can still hold the blue line.”
But on the whole, this was far from Vegas’ best effort. The Golden Knights were not ready at the start of the game once again, as it was all Seattle in the early minutes of the first period.
“Really, we just scored one more goal,” Smith said. “I think it was a pretty loose game, probably looser than we wanted to play. They got a few opportunities. I think we did a good job clearing the front of the net once the puck did get there, but I think we weren’t closing as fast as we could have. But at the end of the day, we’ll take the win and move on.”
Though it was a little too close for comfort, the Golden Knights did what good teams do and found a way to win.
“When it’s crunch time, I think our guys understand the value of getting the two points and the win,” Cassidy said. “When the game’s on the line, I believe our guys want to get it done, are willing to get it done and do get it done, in many different ways, and one of them is sacrificing to keep the puck out of the net.”
The Golden Knights have three games remaining before the start of the postseason, though there is work to be done.
“We still have to fight for our first place,” Barbashev said. “We can’t lose games. I feel like we just gotta be prepared for every single game now and just moving forward and just try to get better and get ready for the playoffs.”
McNabb said the Golden Knights will use the final few matchups in the regular season to fine-tune their game.
“We’re putting ourselves in a good spot,” McNabb said. “We got a good team in here. We believe in the team. We know we can beat any team on any given night, we just have to bring our game and play how we play.”
The Golden Knights will host the Nashville Predators on Saturday in the final home game of the regular season before finishing off the campaign with a back-to-back road set against Calgary and Vancouver next week.