In Toronto, Reilly Smith hit for a shorthanded goal midway through the third period on Tuesday to tie with the Maple Leafs, 3-3. 
“We’re enjoying every minute of it,” Smith said. “It’s tough to go on the road for a really long time, but I think we’re doing a good job being with each other, having fun and experiencing this tough part of the season all together. But we’re rolling with the punches and finding ways to win games.”
The goal rallied the Vegas Golden Knights back and forced an extra session where Smith hit for the game-winning goal just 22 seconds into the extra session.
Logan Thompson made 28 saves in the Vegas win.
Vegas improved to 12-2-0.
“We’re resilient for sure, we’re learning how to win hockey games when we’re not at our best and tonight is a good example of that,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We had some pockets of the game where we need to be better, but we stayed in most games this year and found a way to win a lot of them to be honest with you.
“Tonight was one of those ones where someone was going to have to make a play to pick us up, and it happened to be Karlsson and Reilly.”
Timothy Liljegren hit for a double for the Maple Leafs.
Vegas took a 1-0 lead in the first period off a strike from Nicolas Roy.
Toronto got even, 1-1, with Liljegren’s first goal of the game.
“I think Kallgren played unreal tonight,” Liljegren said. “He made a lot of good saves. Even though we let in four, we gave up way too many chances against. I think he played a great game.
“They play with a lot of speed and are good in transition. Our structure just wasn’t good enough today for Vegas. We gave up way too much.”
The Leafs dropped to 7-4-0.
Jack Eichel restored the lead, 2-1, with 2:05 left in the first period.
“It seemed like we were getting a lot of good chances [throughout the game],” Smith said. “Maybe the volume wasn’t there, but I think all night we had like five or six breakaways and were kind of just looking for holes. On the power play, we kind of caught them out when they were tired at the end of it. Karlsson was able to do a great job jumping into the play, beat his guy and fortunate to cap that one off and tie the game. [It] makes a huge difference when you can swing that on a penalty kill.”
Mitchell Marner tied the game at 13:50 of the middle frame.
“Obviously, [we] didn’t really do what we wanted to in the first or the start of that second period, but we did a better job throughout the game,” Marner said. “We gave this team too many opportunities. They’re going to capitalize eventually, and Kallgren did a great job just keeping us in that game as long as he could.”
Erik Kallgren made 16 saves in the Maple Leafs loss.
“You’re happy about it for sure, but we expect ourselves to be a great team and we’re not settling for anything else,” Marner said. “We expect to try and be getting those points and fighting for those points. We definitely did a great job [over the past stretch]. A little disappointed tonight giving up that third one of the power play.”
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