In Las Vegas, Laurent Brossoit made 30 saves, and the Golden Knights downed the Los Angeles Kings, 5-2, on Thursday night.
The win pushed Vegas three points clear of the Edmonton Oilers for the top spot in the Pacific Division.
Phil Kessel and Ivan Barbashev scored in the first period to give the Knights a 2-0 lead.
Chandler Stephenson pushed the lad to 3-0.
“[Stephenson, Kessel and Barbashev are] on fire, actually,” Vegas defenseman Nicolas Hague said. “Every time they stepped on the ice, they scored.”
LA dropped to 45-24-10.
“‘Barby’s’ a great addition. He’s been solid ever since he’s come here,” Stephenson said. “He gets a lot of pucks. He can finish and can make plays. He has a lot of patience. You know what you’re getting from him. He gets a lot of pucks for you. That’s huge.”
Nicolas Roy scored to make it 4-0 for Vegas headed to the middle frame.
“It was one of those nights where there really were no passengers for us,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “It really shows in the end result.”
Vegas made it 5-0 on a strike from Jonathan Marchessault in the middle frame.
Anze Kopitar and Vladislav Gavrikov scored for the Kings in the second period to stop the Vegas run, but that was all the offense they could muster in the loss.
“We weren’t ready to play. That was pretty evident,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “The other day I gave credit to the team as a whole. I said it was a team win. Everybody contributed. Tonight was a team loss. There were very few players that were engaged early. You can’t play like that at this time of the year. We haven’t had one of those periods in a long, long time. That won’t be good enough for the rest of the year and playoffs. I think they know that.”
Joonas Korpisalo got the start for the Kings, and yielded all five goals from the Golden Knights, he made 10 saves before getting the hook.
Pheonix Copley made 22 saves in a mop up role.
“In moments or situations of the game, there were some good things, some execution in certain situations,” McLellan said. “You certainly look for the positives. Tonight’s disappointing because we weren’t engaged. We’ll look for positives. [Special teams] were two of them.”
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