On The Strip, the Golden Knights got a little healthier on Friday night. The Knights put up a three spot in the opening stanza, and routed the visiting Minnesota Wild, 7-2, the win clinched the playoff berth in the Western Conference. 
“There’s no doubt this is something they want to do. They want an opportunity to repeat as Stanley Cup champions,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “So I think the process of getting here had some ups and downs this year. I mean, we’re all dealing with, you know, what’s the appropriate way to go about our business throughout the year and set ourselves up.”
Logan Thompson made 25 saves, in the win.
Vegas improved to 43-28-8.
“Three goals in the first, it’s always positive,” Vegas forward William Karlsson said. “The boys were hungry. We wanted to, you know, make sure we did our part. We got some help on the way, but you know, overall, really, really good game.”
The rout started with the three-goal outburst in the first period.
Nicolas Roy staked the Golden Knights to a 1-0 lead at 2:57, scoring off an errant uck at the crease.
Vegas pushed the lead to 2-0 on a marker from Pavel Dorofeyev at 6:21, hitting a wicked wrister.
Jack Eichel stretched the lead to 3-0 on a power play strike at 8:35.
“Three goals in the first, it’s always positive,” Vegas’ William Karlsson said. “The boys were hungry. We wanted to, you know, make sure we did our part. We got some help on the way, but you know, overall, really, really good game.”
Minnesota dropped to 37-33-9.
“We’ve got to be way better than that,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “We’ll have a big discussion tomorrow.”
In the middle frame, the Wild got one back on a power play marker from Marat Khusnutdinov at 7:42 to make it 3-1 to Vegas.
“It’s a dream. It’s a good feeling. Guys helped me,” Khusnutdinov said. “We lost the game. My goal didn’t help the team.”
Vegas responded to the Wild goal with a pair of their own for a 5-1 advantage.
Jonathan Marchessault hit off the power play at 13:12 to make it 4-1.
Tomas Hertl stretched the lead to 5-1 with his first goal with Vegas at 2:27 of the third period.
“It was awesome, you know,” Hertl said. “Everybody was definitely happy, even the fans. It was just a great feeling. I’m more happy about the win and clinching the playoffs today, but [it] definitely feels really good to score the first one here in the building because it’s a lot of fun to play here.”
The Wild’s s Ryan Hartman added a little lipstick to the loss with a goal at 7:13 on a delayed penalty call.
Vegas added a bit of salt to the wound with a pair of goals in the back half of third period.
Karlsson scored at 10:49 to make it 6-2.
“I like the way we’re trending,” Cassidy said. “I think the guys know the light is at the end of the tunnel. Now that we’ve punched our ticket, we can start working on our game and figure out who our opponent is. I think you’ll see a lot of energy around the team in the next week or so.”
Keegan Kolesar added the final marker at 13:55 for the 7-2 final count on the scoreboard..
“We still want to build, you know, the momentum for the playoffs,” Hertl said. “We still want to win next week’s games and just feel really good about our game … because the playoffs, before you know it, will be right there. We want to just build our momentum and our game because the playoff is a little different, but we’ll just keep getting ready for it.”
Marc-Andre Fleury made 23 saves in the loss, left without much of a defense in the front of him it was ugly.
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