On The Strip, the Golden Knights scored three times in the first period, and took a 4-0 lad into the third period over the Pittsburgh Penguins, en route to a 5-2 win on Thursday.
Phil Kessel and Jack Eichel scored to give the Golden Knights a 2-0 lead in the opening frame.
“I was just excited to get back out there. You never like watching games,” Eichel said. “For not playing for a few weeks, you always have a lot of energy, but not everything is as crisp as you hope. You know ‘Roysie’ (Nicolas Roy) and ‘Smitty’ (Reilly Smith) were really good on the walls; Roysie being able to play low and on the wing made it a little easier for me. So, I thought we played well together. We created some offense. It was a good game for the whole group.”
Adin Hill made 38 saves in the Knights win.
“It’s always nice when your team jumps out to a 3-0 lead in the first period,” Hill said. “But you know a team like Pittsburgh has a lot of veterans over there; they’ve got a good group. You know they’re going to have a pushback. We withstood that.”
Vegas improved to 27-12-2.
“It looked like tonight there was more balanced scoring for the first time in a while,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “That’s for obvious reasons. You put Jack Eichel in the lineup, he’s going to make things happen. It drops a few guys down to balance things out, then all of a sudden, you have ‘Karlie’ (William Karlsson) and Phil on the third line, those are threats too. And Paul’s game was growing right before he got hurt (on Dec. 15). That’s how it played out.”
Chandler Stephenson rounded out the first period scoring for a 3-0 lead.
“We’ve played better at home recently,” Cassidy said. “We went through that funk where we couldn’t score in this building to save our lives. … All of a sudden, we’re getting some bounces. That gives you energy as well. I put that more on our guys just being excited to be back here and winning in front of our fans. I think that gives us a little bit of juice.”
Mark Stone pushed the lead to 4-0 in the middle frame.
Ty Smith and Sidney Crosby scored in the third period for Pittsburgh.
“I’m sure everyone involved is frustrated because our expectations are high,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “When you don’t live up to them, that’s without a doubt, that’s one of the emotions you deal with. But we can’t allow frustration to get in the way of our ability to perform moving forward. We just have to become more determined and find ways to be a better hockey team.”
The Penguins dropped their sixth straight, and fell to 19-13-6.
Vegas’ Paul Cotter scored in the third period to make the score 5-1 to the Golden Knights, before Crosby hit for his goal.
Casey DeSmith made 26 saves in the Pens loss.
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