Vegas Golden Knights Net Five Unanswered Goals In Game 3 Win

Things didn’t start well for the Vegas Golden Knights, but they finished just fine. Vegas scored five unanswered goals to delete a 2-0 deficit and claim Game Three of the Honda West Division Semifinal series from the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night.

Ryan Hartman opened the scoring just 2:16 into the first period followed by Joel Eriksson-Ek’s goal at 8:30. Minnesota even appeared to open up a 3-0 lead on what would have been Eriksson-Ek’s second of the game, but Pete DeBoer successfully challenged the play and the Wild were called offside.

In the second period, Vegas woke up. The Golden Knights out-shot the Wild 21-5 in the second, tying the franchise record for shots in a playoff game period. Mark Stone scored his first goal of the playoffs at 8:39 to start the scoring for Vegas. Patrick Brown and Reilly Smith followed in the second period, and William Karlsson made it 4-1 in the third.

Stone would add an empty-net goal with just under a minute remaining to ice the game for Vegas.

Marc-Andre Fleury turned aside 14 shots as Vegas really took the Wild out of the game after the first period, allowing only nine shots over the final 40 minutes.

The Takeaways:

• The most important thing Vegas needed to do was weather the first-period storm from the Wild, and they struggled with it. Minnesota scored twice and had a third goal disallowed while Vegas really seemed out of it and lethargic. Fortunately for the Golden Knights, they are an incredibly talented team that can break out from such a period and rebound as they did tonight.
• Tonight was the 12th straight start for Marc-Andre Fleury in which he has allowed two-goals-or-less. He is doing nothing short of carrying the Vegas Golden Knights right now.
• Patrick Brown scored in his first game of the 2021 playoffs, a real lunchpail goal from directly in front of the Wild net. A heads up pass off the back dasher from Nick Holden rebounded out into the slot for Brown’s shot.
• Holden ended up with two assists on the night for his first two points of the playoffs.
• Vegas did a nice job staying out of the box, only taking two penalties all night. The Wild were in the box five times although the Golden Knights PP struggled.
• Max Pacioretty was still held out of Game Three but earlier in the day DeBoer described him as day-to-day and a game-time decision.