In Las Vegas, Marc-Andre Fleury made 19 saves and shut out the visiting New York Islanders, 1-0, on Saturday night.
It was his 60th career NHL shutout and erased the bad taste from a stretch of porous netminding.
“It gets so frustrating when you allow that many goals,” Fleury said. “I think there was some bad luck sometimes, but our team played very well defensively tonight.”
Reilly Smith scored the game’s lone goal.
“It’s the will. Things are coming down pretty tight in the standings and guys are really stepping up, guys are getting in the lanes,” Vegas’ Shea Theodore said. “[Fleury’s] been playing great back there and that’s always nice to have.”
It was the second straight shutout loss for the Isles who were embarrassed by the Nashville Predators, 5-0..
“We’ve got to score a goal,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “We haven’t scored a goal in two games. You have to pressure them. I don’t think we did that. It’s a shame we wasted a good goaltending effort.”
Smith’s goal came in the middle frame.
“We stuck with it. Games like that can be pretty frustrating,” Smith said. “They do a good job keeping people and pucks to the outside.”
[WATCH:Â All Islanders vs. Golden Knights highlights]
Semyon Varlamov made 42 saves in the loss.
“I thought we had a good start today,” Varlamov said. “We played well in the first period. … Vegas started creating scoring chances in the second period. So we go into the third period with the score 1-0, and I thought we had some chances to score but just couldn’t tie the game.”
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