The Vegas Golden Knights followed up a shutout loss at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche with a 2-1 overtime win against the Boston Bruins, and picked up a much needed pair of points. Alex Pietrangelo netted the game winner, and was the beneficiary of some masterful work by Mark Stone. Logan Thompson was back in action for the team, Wednesday’s start Jiri Patera was out with an injury, and his 32 saves helped hand Boston their 3rd consecutive loss. Both sides were unable to score during the initial 40 minutes of play, and the game came down to the final 21 minutes of play.
Capitalizing on the power play has been a bit of an issue as of late for Vegas, but Jack Eichel opened the scoring 7:01 into the 3rd period on a tip-in of a shot by Jonathan Marchessault. It was a well timed play by the Golden Knights who gained possession by winning a battle along the boards, and the puck was worked around to Marchessault who then got it to the front of the net where Eichel was waiting.
Unfortunately, the lead for Vegas was short-lived as Matt Grzelcyk tied things up at 12:18 on a wrist shot following a failed clearing attempt after the Golden Knights won an defensive zone draw. The puck was intercepted along the wall by Trent Frederic, and he got it to Grzelcyk who put it on net from range. The game stayed tied at 1 for the remainder of the period, and the game was then decided early into overtime.
Eichel had the puck behind the net and he passed it to Stone who slowly but surely took the puck up the ice and almost made it a point to draw the attention of Boston’s players while Pietrangelo went unmarked. He then drove on goal during the 2-on-1 that developed, and Pietrangelo had an easy tap in to send the Vegas crowd home happy.
It was a decent effort for the Golden Knights in the 2nd game of a back-to-back, and scoring on the power play in the 3rd and executing early into overtime made the difference because they were outworked at 5v5.
The Golden Knights improved to 24-13-5 in the win, and now sit 2nd in the division with 53 points in 42 games. Vegas is off on Friday, and they return to action on Saturday when they take on the Calgary Flames.