In Las Vegas, Jack Eichel scored twice in the second period on Wednesday to help the Golden Knights edge past the Carolina Hurricanes, 3-2.
“It was a great effort and a lot of resiliency from our group to stick with it,” Eichel said. “It was a tight-checking game. There wasn’t a ton of room out there. They play the game going forward. They put a lot of pressure on you. I thought we did a good job at managing that.”
The win snapped a two0game skid for Vegas.
Adin Hill made 24 saves in the Vegas win.
“We had a good meeting this morning with most of the lines,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We talked about that it’s that time of the year. It’s 200-foot games, it’s details are going to make the difference against good hockey clubs. Tonight, a very good hockey club. They bought in. We did a good job at limiting shots. … In general, we did a good job.”
The Golden Knights improved to 36-19-6.
Eichel’s second goal was on a breakaway with 69 seconds left in the second period.
“Great play by Phil [Kessel] and then a great play by [Ivan Barbashev] to lead me on the breakaway,” Eichel said. “It starts in our end. We’ve done a good job at limiting the interior shots of the other team. That’s been one of the real keys to our success lately.”
Carolina’s Martin Necas scored between the Eichel goals in the middle frame to make the 2-1 after the second period.
“Tonight was a little bit easier, trying to understand a little bit more of Jack and ‘Marchy’ and how they play,” Barbashev said. “They made it easier with their support, and (I) just try and play simple.”
Carolina dropped to 39-12-8.
“We let [Eichel] alone a couple of times. He’s not going to miss,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We had a great third period. We did everything we had to do to get back in there. Unfortunately, we went to sleep for a second, then it’s in the back of your net. We had a good start to the game. Little lull in the second, we didn’t play our game that well. We made a couple of errors. We gave their best player a breakaway. All in all, I loved how we came back, we just had that one mental error in the third that cost us.”
Jordan Staal scored to tie the game, 2-2, for the Canes at 12:44 of the third period.
Reilly Smith scored in the 17th minute of the third to restore the lead for the Knights, and the 3-2 final score.
Frederik Andersen made 17 saves in the Vanes loss
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