In Las Vegas, the Golden Knights got a late goal from Keegan Kolesar on Thursday night to help send them to a 3-1 win over the visiting Seattle Kraken.
His goal snapped a 1-1 tie with 80 seconds left on the game clock.
“I’m happy for them,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “They do a lot of dirty work for us, penalty kills and the physicality of the forecheck part. So good for ‘Koley.’ Those types of goals are more prevalent in the playoffs too. So, it’s a good thing to be able to generate offense that way because the rush game tends to shut down.”
Logan Thompson made 21 saves in the win.
The Golden Knights improved to 37-25-7 off their fourth win in five games.
Vegas ended the night four points clear of the St Louis Blues for the second wild card in the Western Conference.
“We’ve played big-time hockey games as a group before,” Vegas’ Jack Eichel said. “We understand the circumstances that we’ve put ourselves in now. Every game means something, so important to get two points. Game like tonight, you know, I thought we dominated there for 40 minutes. They get a power-play goal there, and I thought we stuck with it. We had some chances after they scored. Obviously, a huge goal there at the end of the game with a minute and a half left.”
Vegas took a 1-0 lead when Eichel hit at 8:14 of the opening stanza, scoring off a rebound.
The game stayed at 1-0 until Jaden Schwartz scored 13:29 to tie the game, 1-1.
“Obviously, you want to come back and help the team out as much as you can,” Schwartz said. “Overall, it was a back-and-forth game. Both goalies played good. It could have gone either way. It would have been nice to get it into overtime. I thought we did a lot of good things. We worked hard. For me, I want to help the team as much as I can.”
The Kraken dropped to 28-28-12 off their sixth straight loss.
“Our effort was good,” Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. “We battled really hard all night. We fought back to tie the game up. We stayed with it on the power play. So, the effort from start to finish was complete.”
Chandler Stephenson iced the game for Vegas when he potted a power play goal with 11 seconds left into an empty net for the 3-1 final count on the scoreboard.
“Obviously, that time of year trying to collect as many points as we can,” Stephenson said. “We’re not happy with the spot we’re in, so just trying to collect as many wins here. It’s kind of been building. (The game against) Tampa (a 5-3 loss on Tuesday) was a good one. The last three games have been pretty good. Obviously to get rewarded for that tonight, I think it’s a confidence builder for the team.”
Philipp Grubauer made 34 saves in the loss.
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