The Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-2 on Saturday, but the biggest news of the night was Adin Hill leaving the game in the third period with an injury. Hill had stopped 12 of 13 shots up to that point, and after his last save he skated to the bench and let Bruce Cassidy know he wasn’t feeling 100 percent.
The team has since recalled Jiri Patera, and he will likely get into some action on the team’s upcoming road trip.
As for the victory, the Golden Knights trailed 1-0 after one period of play following a goal by Erik Gudbranson 4:32 into the game. The team rebounded in the second period with a pair of early goal with Ivan Barbashev picking up his 15th of the season at 3:31 of the period, and Jack Eichel picking up his 23rd of the year 1:16 later.
The team continued the offensive in the third period, and Pavel Dorofeyev extended the lead to 3-1 with his 10th goal of the season just 3:03 into the period.
Eichel picked up his second goal of the game, this one on the power play, with under 3 minutes left to play to make it 4-1 in favor of Vegas.
Carson Meyer picked up a goal for the Blue Jackets with just 9.8 seconds remaining to make it 4-2, and the Golden Knights ran out the clock to secure another important pair of points. Hopefully we learn more about Hill’s status soon, and that whatever is ailing him is minor.
He wasn’t all that busy against the Blue Jackets, and hopefully it was just a strain of something while making a save after a period of relative inactivity. Losing him would be a big blow, and it is good that the team has another goaltender like Logan Thompson who has risen to the occasion before.
The Golden Knights start a road trip tomorrow in St. Louis, and will be in action again on Tuesday vs. the Nashville Predators. It is going to be a challenging stretch, and will be a big test for them ahead of the playoffs.
