All eyes were on how the Vegas Golden Knights would respond coming out of the bye week, and they certainly answered the bell in a big way against the Carolina Hurricanes.
After dropping three of four games to start a long road trip prior to the 2020 All-Star Break, the pressure was on the Vegas Golden Knights heading into Friday night.
But, and although it was far from a perfect outing, the Knights struck late on the power play in the third period to snatch a gigantic win and a huge two points.
It was a perfect start for Vegas who landed the first blow of the night thanks to Paul Stastny, who buried a sweet feed from Reilly Smith.
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Smith tallied another primary helper at the midway point of the first period after dishing the puck to Jonathan Marchessault who beat Petr Mrazek with a wrister.
It was a different story in the middle period as Carolina began to fight back, and they got on the board thanks to Teuvo Teravainen.
Nate Schmidt, who is beginning to settle into a groove following an awful first-half of the regular season, responded for the Golden Knights in the final period after joining the rush and beating Mrazek on a two-on-one rush.
However, Vegas began to do their usual act of imploding and it was a tied game after both Brock McGinn and Sebastian Aho beat Malcolm Subban.
But, although this may have been a game the Knights would have dropped prior to the break, they displayed an abundance of resilience and landed the final, fatal blow of the night with minutes remaining.
On the power play after Aho was given two minutes for hooking, it took the Vegas Golden Knights just five seconds to answer the bell and produce the goods.
Paul Stastny won the faceoff, Mark Stone dished the puck to Shea Theodore who fired a shot towards goal and Stastny directed the puck into the path of Alex Tuch who buried the winning goal with 2:28 to go.
The Knights were able to hold on for what was a huge win after the bye week and it was just what the doctor ordered for new Head Coach Peter DeBoer.
Let’s go over some notes & stats from the game: