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Expressive Mark Stone Propels Golden Knights to First Win of Season

Published

2 years ago

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Mark Stone, Stanley Cup playoffs, NHL trade rumors

Vegas Golden Knights (1-0-0, 2 points) captain Mark Stone scored his first goal of the season in dramatic fashion Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Kings (0-1-0, 0 points). Stone scored with 24.9 seconds left in a tie game to prevent overtime and give the VGK their first win of the 2022-23 season.

Here’s how this back-and-forth, entertaining, and exhilarating game went in LA.

With Will Carrier injured, Paul Cotter cracked the Golden Knight’s opening night lineup on the fourth line and started the game. Logan Thompson got the start in goal and stopped 27 of 30. Freshly re-signed defenseman Nicolas Hague was not in the lineup for the Golden Knights on Tuesday.

The first period opened up with both teams trading chances for stretches. The Golden Knights had the first six shots of the game, but the Kings followed with the next six.

Gabe Vilardi scored the first goal of the game. Ben Hutton lost his stick in the corner, and the Kings took advantage, setting up around the stick-less D.

Also, in the first period, Brayden McNabb rocked Carl Grundstrom with one of his patented hits.

The Golden Knights continued to develop a lot of strong offensive chances off the rush. They were finally rewarded in the second period with their first goal of the season from Jonathan Marchessault.

 

Two quick goals were exchanged in the early stages of the second period. Jack Eichel got his first goal of the season just as a brief VGK powerplay expired.

Then, Sean Durzi made a slick play to the blue line to get the puck to Anze Kopitar. The Kings captain then patiently held on to the puck to get Thompson out of position and feed Adrian Kempe, who scored.

All night the line of Stone, Chandler Stephenson, and Brett Howden was hard on pucks. They all looked like Stone with their takeaway skills. Midway through the third, their play got the Golden Knights their fifth powerplay of the game, which resulted in a goal.

Willam Karlsson tipped in an Alex Pietrangelo shot-pass for the go-ahead goal and the team’s first PPG of the season.

But Phil Kessel’s second stick penalty of the game put the Kings on the powerplay, and just as it expired, they scored to tie the game. Vilardi made an in-between-the-legs pass to Arthur Kaliyev, who found the back of the net.

Just as it seemed the game was going to overtime, the takeaway game of the Golden Knight’s second line finished the game early. A forced Kings turnover sprung Stephenson into the offensive zone. He found Stone cutting into the slot, and with less than 25 seconds left, Stone scored on a wrist shot.

The Golden Knights closed out the game with a 4-3 win from Crypto.com Arena. They will have their home opener on Thursday at 7:00 against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Stay tuned for our takeaways from the Golden Knight’s first win of the season tomorrow.

Player of the Game- Mark Stone

Easy pick here. Stone was hard on pucks all night and deserved the game-winning goal.

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