Fortress Rocking, Offense From the Defense; Golden Knights Win 4-2

Three goals in just over a minute and a half of game time propelled the Vegas Golden Knights (7-6) to a 4-2 win over the Seattle Kraken (4-8-1) Tuesday night. Jack Eichel was in the building, Paul Cotter made his NHL debut, and the Golden Knights powerplay scored again.

After yet another spectacular pregame intro that featured a Golden Knight fighting off a Kraken that broke through the ice at T-Mobile Arena the battle of the recent NHL expansion teams commenced.

The Golden Knights took two unusual penalties in this game. Chandler Stephenson was called for an unsportsmanlike penalty after grabbing a Kraken player’s helmet. The Kraken took advantage as Jordan Eberle scored his seventh goal in seven games after a nice setup from Marcus Johansson. 

The second strange penalty came in the second period as Nicolas Roy took a faceoff violation penalty. However, the Kraken were unable to score on this powerplay chance.

After a bone-crushing hit from Brayden McNabb and some good work by the Golden Knights depth forwards, the team found its footing in the first period. The trend of getting offense from the defense continued with Alex Pietrangelo scoring the first goal of the game for VGK with a shot from the point.

The Golden Knights struggled to continue their offensive upkeep in the second period as they went a stretch of thirteen minutes without registering a shot. Robin Lehner once more continued to stand on his head for the Golden Knights as he finished the game with _ saves. He made an incredible save on Morgan Geekie as well.

The Kraken broke free late in the period with Brandon Tanev setting up a pass to Yanni Gourde who buried home the go-ahead goal for the Kraken making it 2-1.

The Golden Knights immediately turned things around though as they would go on to score three consecutive goals over the span of two periods. The first of which came from Evgenii Dadonov who scored sixteen seconds after Gourde’s goal.

Thirty seconds into the third period Shea Theodore fired home a one-timer to give the Golden Knights their first lead of the game. Just moments later Adam Larsson took a penalty and the Golden Knights went to work and scored their first home powerplay goal this season. 

After some nice powerplay movement from Theodore and Pietrangelo, Jonathan Marchessault found Reilly Smith who scored to make the game 4-2. Marchessault had the primary assist on both Theodore and Smith’s goals.

The Golden Knights had a brief scare late in the game when Alex Pietrangelo sent a puck over the glass for a delay of game. After a Golden Knights timeout, the penalty-killing unit took to the ice with less than two minutes left in the game and finished off the Kraken.

The Golden Knights got everything they needed tonight including a big game from depth players, special teams contributing, offense from the defense, and yet another big game from Robin Lehner. The team will be back in action Thursday night as they take on the Minnesota Wild at home at 7:00 pm.