The Vegas Golden Knights are beating the teams they are expected to gt past.
On Sunday, in the only the NHL action, the Knights defeated the Arizona Coyotes, 5-1, for their third straight win.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 29 saves to get the win.
“We played hard, we played quick, we were good on our forecheck, we didn’t make a lot of mistakes and [Fleury] was just being [Fleury],” Vegas forward Jonathan Marchessault said.
Paul Stastny and Brandon Pirri kicked in a goal apiece and added an assist each in the win.
Vegas improved to 23-15-4 for 50 points on the season so far.
Reilly Smith, Cody Eakin and Ryan Carpenter also had strikes for the Knights.
The game was close until the third period when the Knights broke open a 2-1 game
“It’s disheartening,” Arizona head coach Rick Tocchet said. “We’re right there, we have a power play to start the third, but we had bad passes, [we were] light on the puck and a couple of veteran guys gave pucks away to score. They stuck with it and we didn’t. It’s as simple as that. I just saw a team go totally south on us.”
After a slow start to the season Vegas has had a resurgence and tied for the top spot in the Pacific Division with the Calgary Flames; the Flames do have three game in hand on the Knights.
“We had a tough start to this season and some ups and downs,” Fleury said. “[Now] we’re more consistent and we have a chance to win every night and we’ve been climbing the standings.”
Alex Galchenyuk had the lone strike for the Coyotes who dropped to 17-20-2.
“We had a struggling start. The first month was not good enough for our group and we know that. But we knew with the quality of players we had here, we had a chance to come back. But we’ve got to keep it going. There’s a lot of hockey left,” Marchessault said after the win.
[WATCH: All Golden Knights vs. Coyotes highlights]
Darcy Kuemper made 33 saves in the loss.
“You want to be a good NHL team or player, you’ve got to be consistent. It’s hard to do it all the time, but that’s what good teams do. … Maybe we just have some players here who just can’t do it and we’re going to have to find some players that will. To just implode like that, it makes no sense to me,” Tocchet lamented after the game.
There is more talent on the Coyotes bench than was demonstrated Sunday night and the third period disappearing act was noteworthy for its suddenness.
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