In Tempe, the Vegas Golden Knights escaped with a 3-2 win over the Coyotes on Thursday night. A porous opening stanza by the Coyotes led to a three-goal outburst from the Knights.
“The first five minutes, obviously, you could see they had the edge,” Arizona coach Andre Tourigny said. “When we got our legs, we were a good team.”
Adin Hill made 20 saves in the win.
The Golden Knights moved to 31-15-6.
“We had a really good start, we scored three goals really quick and that probably won us the game,” Vegas’ Ivan Barbashev said.
Jonathan Marchessault and Nicolas Hague within a 58-secondspan in the opening minutes of the game for a 2-0 lead.
Marchessault scored with 19 seconds gone on the game for a 1-0 lead.
“I think we understand as a team where we are at this time of the year,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “It’s Part 3 of the season and the teams that expect to be playing deep into the spring are getting their game in order, and I can see that with our guys. We’re not mismanaging as many pucks or taking as many chances. We know we have to play winning hockey.”
Hague with 77 seconds gone for the 2-0 advantage and a quiet building in Tempe.
“We just want to start to build some consistency into our game,” Hague said. “We’re obviously happy with the way we played against Edmonton and the mindset was, ‘Let’s keep it rolling.’ And I thought we did have a great start.”
Jason Zucker trimmed the deficit to 2-1 at 4:07 of the first.
Chandler Stephenson scored the final goal of the night for Vegas at 6:17 for a 3-1 lead headed to the middle frame.
“The guys just have a certain level of comfort with him,” Cassidy said. “He’s calm, he’s relaxed, so that allows everyone else to be calm and relaxed. … He has the ability to play in big games and big environments, and everyone can just relax and play knowing that he has their back.”
The Coyotes dropped to 23-23-3 off their fourth straight loss.
After a scoreless second period, Clayton Keller pulled the Coyotes back to winin one, 3-2, at made it 3-2 at 4:40 of the third period.
Connor Ingram got the start for the Coyotes he made three saves, yielding three goals before getting the hook just past the midway point of the first period.
Karel Vejmelka made 28 saves in relief.
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