In Montreal, the Canadiens came out in the first period and skated off with a 2-0 lead over the Vegas Golden Knights after 20 minutes. 
Unfortunately for the Habs, that was they managed on offense in a 5-2 loss to Vegas, on Saturday night.
“Tonight was not just a poor start, that was a horrendous start,” Golden Knights head coach Peter DeBoer said. “It was a whole different level of how we started that game and thankfully our goalie was our best player early. And we’ve got a lot of character in that room and the guys fixed it.”
The Knights responded in the middle frame with three goals and then two more in the third period.
Robin Lehner made 36 saves in the Vegas win.
“We’re going through adversity and we’re scratching and clawing to stay in the race and every point matters right now, it’s as simple as that,” Lehner said. “The League is getting tighter and tighter. You can’t fall out of the race early, it’s really hard to come back, it doesn’t happen that often. You’ve got to stay in the mix.”
Nick Suzuki and Tyler Toffoli scored in the opening period for Montreal.
“We kind of took our foot off the gas,” Suzuki said. “Our first period was great, had a lot of momentum coming in, everyone was feeling good, and then giving up the [power-play] goal just kind of killed that. There were moments in the second and third where we could have scored, and it just didn’t go in for us.”
The Golden Knights improved to 6-5-0.
Alex Pietrangelo (power play) and Jonathan Marchessault scored in the second period to tie the game, 2-2.
“I think the last week we’ve been running stuff that we want, and we just haven’t really gotten the bounces,” Pietrangelo said. “We’ve been close and sometimes you’ve just got to simplify it and take the shots when they’re there. That’s pretty much all we did tonight. We’ve been looking at a lot of different things, a lot of different ways that we can score, and sometimes you just need a bounce or two to kind of kick-start.”
Dylan Coghlan also scored in the middle frame, off the power play, for a 3-2 lead to Vegas heading to the third period.
Montreal dropped to 3-10-0.
Chandler Stephenson and Brayden McNabb scored empty-net goals in the third period to ice the game.
Jake Allen made 13 saves in the Montreal loss.
“When you have a two-goal lead like that, good teams find a way to lock it down,” Suzuki said. “They had a power-play goal that made it 2-1 and it seemed like we just kind of backed off a bit, let them have the momentum.”
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