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Flames and Tkachuk Stunt on Golden Knights, VGK Loses 6-0

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2 years ago

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The Vegas Golden Knights (28-17-3) had a rough night Wednesday in Calgary as they were defeated 5-0_ by the Calgary Flames (24-13-6). This puts the Flames only five points behind the Golden Knights in the Pacific Division standings and they have six games at hand.

The Golden Knights will now be off until next Wednesday as they will make up their third game on their schedule against the Colorado Avalanche. There is a good chance we could see the team’s lead in the Pacific Division standings be removed.

Robin Lehner and Jakob Markstrom started in the net for each team. Golden Knights captain Mark Stone was unavailable as an hour before the game, it was announced that he would be out with an upper-body injury.

For the Flames, this was their first game in seven days, back from the 2022 NHL All-Star Game. But from the start of the first period, you wouldn’t have been able to tell as it looked like the Golden Knights just woke up from a week-long nap.

The Flames piled on three goals in the first period alone against the Golden Knights. Defensively, the Golden Knights were an absolute mess allowing turnover after turnover and refusing to help out their goaltender in Lehner. 

The Flames’ top line of Elias Lindholm, Matthew Tkachuk, and Johnny Gaudreau skated circles around the Golden Knight’s defense and scored the game’s first goal. With some solid puck movement between Gaudreau and Tkachuk, Gaudreau scored his 25 points in the last 14 games.

A goal right after an expiring powerplay would be the next tally for the Flames as Mikael Backlund scored. Milan Lucic was left all alone in front of Lehner as the two defensemen for the Golden Knights in Dylan Coghlan and Ben Hutton seemed preoccupied with other matters.

The Flames added yet another goal thanks to sloppy defensive work from the Golden Knights with Lindholm scoring. Lindholm easily skated through the Golden Knight’s 1-1-3 completely un-guarded and fired home a simple wrist shot that beat Lehner. 

The Golden Knights found themselves down by three after one period of play and things only got worse in the second as Andrew Mangiapane extended the Flames lead.

Nolan Patrick had a trio of quality chances, including a breakaway but Markstrom was there all night. The Golden Knights simply dug themselves in too deep of a hole Wednesday night.

The cherry on top came in the third period when Tkachuk scored on Lehner with an in-between-the-legs play. If you hadn’t already turned the game off by this point, this surely did it for you. Mangiapane also added another goal late.

Vegas Hockey Now’s Player of the Game: Nolan Patrick

I guess it’s Nolan Patrick? In his return to the lineup after being a healthy scratch Patrick had three quality chances but couldn’t beat Markstrom. If this were Calgary Hockey Now, I would pick Markstrom as my player of the game.

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