The Vegas Golden Knights put an end to their first round series with the Minnesota Wild on Friday night.
The Knights took Game 7, 6-2, and now move on to face the Colorado Avalanche.
Mattias Janmark potted his first NHL hat trick in the win.
“It’s what every player dreams of, to score in a Game 7,” Janmark said. “It’s hard to believe that it’s going to happen to you, but today, bounces were going in. It’s a dream come true, for sure.”
Marc-Andre Fleury made 19 saves in the series-winning victory.
“You hope that moments like that galvanize your group,” Vegas head coach Peter DeBoer said. “When we talked this morning in our team meeting, we talked about how we felt we were prepared for this tonight. We were ready to go and we had all hands on deck … we felt with that lineup that we would be a hard team to beat tonight.”
Kirill Kaprizov and Zach Parise were the Wild scorers.
“I think we all firmly believed with where we were a handful days ago, down 3-1 and making it 3-3, we all firmly believed we were going to win this game tonight,” Parise said. “We didn’t quit. We played, we competed, but just couldn’t get that third one.”
Zach Whitecloud, Nicolas Hague and Max Pacioretty also scored for the Golden Knights.
“It was a ton of fun,” Hague said. “The building was rocking, which is always awesome, but it was on another level tonight. A little nervous at first, but boy was it fun.”
The Knights will now face the Avalanche in the second round series; Game 1 is in Denver on Sunday
“It was a hard series,” Janmark said. “Minnesota’s a good team. We were up 3-1 and you want to close those games out when you get the chance, but they’re a good team. They fought back. What I’ve learned throughout my career in the playoffs is that you have to go through these games if you want to get far. You’ve got to know how to play.”
Cam Talbot made 29 saves in the loss.
“Just disappointing,” the Wild’s Marcus Foligno said. “We had a pretty good start and made it 2-2. We liked our chances but couldn’t get a lot generating after that.”
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