Vegas leap frog Kings for third in Pacific with win over Chicago Vegas has one game left, as do LA

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On The Strip, the Golden Knights took advantage of the Los Angeles Kings being idle on Tuesday night, and took over third place in the Pacific Division with a 3-1 win over the visiting Chicago Blackhawks.

Logan Thompson made 22 saves in the win.

“Logan was excellent,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “You want him to feel good about his play going into the playoffs.”

The Golden Knights moved to 45-28-8.

After a scoreless opening stanza, Brayden McNabb scored at 16:25 of the middle frame to give the Knights a 1-0 lead, scoring off a rebound.

“I don’t even know what happened,” McNabb said. “I was just able to put it in. I don’t know. I don’t have much to say about it.”

The score stayed that way into the third period when Michael Amadio pushed the lead to 2-0 at 7:13, scoring off a breakaway after a steal.

“Just want to get the shot off before the D-man got to me. So, I found a hole up top,” Amadio said. “I just wanted to play a good all-around (game). Make sure my details were there. I thought we did a good job at that as a group tonight.”

Vegas and the Kings each have one game left on their schedules.  Playing for the right to start the playoffs against the Edmonton Oilers.

Chicago dropped to 23-52-5 with two games left on their schedule.

“We battled hard. We had a couple really good chances and Thompson made some good saves,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “Obviously that goal by Dickinson gave us a chance at the end. Unfortunately, they were good. They got the puck and put it away.”

Jason Dickinson was the lone striker for the Blackhawks, his goal at 16:02 of the third, ruined the shut out bid, and trimmed the deficit to 2-1.

“We put on a pretty solid game, to be honest,” Chicago’s  Seth Jones said. “We had a lot of O-zone chances. …. They just capitalized on some of their chances, and we didn’t.”

Nicolas Roy  iced the win when he hit an empty net at 18:24 for the 3-1 final count on the scoreboard.

“We’re in a great mood right now,” Roy said. “Obviously, the best time of the year is coming. We’re trying to get our game in the best place possible. I don’t think it was our best game tonight. But I think defensively we do a great job. Enough to win, so there’s a great mood around the team.”

Petr Mrazek made 34 saves in the loss.