Sign in Subscribe
Front Page

Golden Knights ride four-goal second period, extinguish Flames 6-1 in critical bounce-back performance

Logan Thompson stopped 35 shots to help Vegas secure the two points.

The Vegas Golden Knights took on the Calgary Flames Thursday night at Scotiabank Saddledome, an arena Vegas has struggled in historically. But after leaving another point on the table in a 5-4 overtime loss Tuesday in Vancouver, the Golden Knights had to win this game.

They got the job done.

In fact, the Golden Knights played arguably one of their best games of the season, riding a dominant second-period effort to a 6-1 blowout win against the Flames.

Logan Thompson got his first start in two weeks and came through with a 35-save performance for his fifth consecutive win.

It was a team-wide effort, with six different Golden Knights skaters lighting the lamp and five recording multiple points.

Despite the lopsided result, it was the Flames who opened the scoring, finding twine on the power play after a failed clear by the Golden Knights proved costly midway through the first period.

The puck found its way onto the stick of Tyler Toffoli, who was alone at the side of the net. His patience paid off as he set up the trailing Dillon Dube in the slot for the one-timer.

However, the Golden Knights scored the next six goals, the first of which came less than three minutes later.

It came on a pretty tic-tac-toe passing play as the new-look line of Jack Eichel, Jonathan Marchessault and Mattias Janmark cashed in to even things up at 1-1 at 13:09 of the first.

It was Eichel’s 12th tally in 27 games and extended his point streak to six games.

Vegas took over the game in the second period, scoring four goals on just nine shots.

Evgenii Dadonov gave Vegas its first lead of the night when he collected a rebound at the side of the net and lifted it over the shoulder of Flames netminder Jacob Markstrom. The goal came just one second after an underwhelming Vegas power play came to an end.

The Golden Knights added two more goals in quick succession to make it 4-1 less than 10 minutes into the second frame.

Michael Amadio set up a speeding William Karlsson, who split the Calgary defense but was unable to beat Markstrom on the initial attempt. However, Amadio followed the play and put home the rebound for his 10th of the season.

Marchessault scored just 40 seconds later to give Vegas a commanding three-goal lead.

Janmark picked up the loose puck at center ice and carried it into the Calgary end with speed, skating around defenseman Rasmus Andersson before finding the breaking Marchessault in front.

That goal ended Markstrom’s night; he was pulled after surrendering four goals on 17 shots.

But the Golden Knights didn’t stop there.

They added to their lead with a power-play strike with 2:24 remaining in the second. Nicolas Roy tipped a point shot by Shea Theodore to make it 5-1 through 40 minutes.

It was Roy’s first goal since March 24, and it ended Vegas’ power-play drought after 20 failed attempts.

Karlsson added one more for good measure in the final two minutes of the contest for the 6-1 victory. He and Marchessault finished the game with three points, while Janmark, Dadonov and Roy all had two.

Thompson finished the game with 35 saves on 36 shots for a .972 save percentage. He wasn’t overly tested but made a number of clutch saves to prevent Calgary from generating any sort of momentum. He is 8-4-0 in 13 games this season.

The Golden Knights now have 87 points and sit just two points behind the Stars in the second wildcard race. Vegas has seven games remaining in the 2021-22 regular season, while Dallas has eight.

The Golden Knights will wrap up this three-game road trip Saturday afternoon in Edmonton against an Oilers team coming off a 4-0 win against Nashville. Vegas has won three of four road games this month but is 1-2-0 against the Oilers this season.

Read next

Comments ()