In Las Vegas, the Colorado Avalanche suffered their second straight embarrassing loss. This one, on Sunday was different reasons.
On Saturday night, the Vancouver Canucks put up the extra point in a 7-0 win over the Avs n Denver.
On Sunday, the Golden Knights trailed the Avs, 3-0 headed to the third period.
Vegas struck for three goals in regulation to force an extra session.
In extra time, Vegas’ Jack Eichel sent a writ shot on goal from above the left circle, Tomas Hertl got a stick on the puck to deflect it home for a 4-3 win to the Knights.
The goal came off a power play at 1:23 of the session.
“Always nice to score in overtime,” Hertl said. “It’s always the game-winner, but hopefully, I have a lot of goals in the playoffs.”
Adin Hill made 21 saves in the win.
The Golden Knights improved to 44-28-8, they are now one point back of the Los Angeles Kings for third in the Pacific Division.
“I think having one of those where we weren’t at our best and we stuck with it. It would have been easy tonight to say, ‘You know what, we’ll build our game, do some things in the third that are good and then worry about our next one next week,’” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Good that they push back and want to win. So, I think that’ll help the group collectively as we go into the playoffs because this is a game, if and when, we’re in this position, we’ll look back and say this is the one that says, ‘Hey, you’re never out of it and here’s how we got back in it.’”
The Avalanche had complete control of the game through the first two periods of the match.
Ross Colton opened the scoring at 7:26 of the first period to give the Avs a 1-0 lead,
Cale Makar pushed the Avs into a 2-0 advantage midway through the opening stanza, scoring off a wrister.
In the middle frame, Mikko Rantanen stretched the lead to 3-0 at 12:50, scoring off a backhand shot.
The Avalanche dropped to 49-25-7 off their fourth loss in five games.
“We stopped pushing a little bit to continue to try and create offense,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “You get in a game when a team makes a push, you got to continue to push back. That’s what the message was on the bench, while still being smart and deliberate with the puck, which we did. We didn’t push back hard enough. But, at the end of the day, you can’t take dumb penalties in a tight game.”
For whatever reason, the Avs took their foot off the gas in the third period, opening the door for the Golden Knights to rally back.
Ivan Barbashev got the comeback started at 2:56, scoring off a wrap around for a 3-1 score.
William Karlsson then hit for a double to get the game tied, 3-3.
He potted his first at 6:35, scoring off the power play to trim the deficit to 3-2, scoring off a wrist shot from the left circle.
He collected his double at 16:23 with another wrister to force the extra session.
“‘Karl’ is one of the most underrated players in NHL, I think,” Eichel said. “I don’t know if he gets enough attention for what he does. When you’re his teammate and you get to watch him day in and day out, and night in and night out in the game, he’s just so sound all over the place.”
Alexandar Georgiev made 26 saves in the loss.
“The start of the game was probably the best we started all year, which was nice,” Makar said. “We can’t seem to find ways to put it together, unfortunately. We got a week to solve the problem.”
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