Vegas Golden Knights overcome late scare to win a huge one in Calgary

It was a huge win for the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday as they downed the Calgary Flames 5-3 at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

In what was the first game of a colossal back-to-back, the Vegas Golden Knights overcame some adversity to bounce back from a tough loss in Winnipeg on Friday.

Racing into a three-goal lead, things were going to plan for the Golden Knights until the Flames came roaring back with three unanswered goals.

The contest could have spiralled out of control for Vegas from that point on, but they regained their composure and escaped with a big two points thanks to Shea Theodore‘s game-winner.

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After allowing a goal on the first shot in three of their previous four outings, the Golden Knights bucked that trend in Calgary.

Tomas Nosek, who has been banged up more often than not as of late, got Vegas on the board at 5:24 in the first period after firing home a rebound following some good work by Ryan Reaves.

Nick Holden made it a two-goal game midway through the first period, joining the rush and then burying a silky feed from Nick Cousins on a two-on-one odd-man rush.

It was near domination by the Golden Knights and they landed another blow on the chin of the Flames early in the second period, with Max Pacioretty one-timing home a dish from William Karlsson on the power play.

However, things quickly began to fall apart for Vegas after Milan Lucic skated in on an odd-man rush before squeezing a shot through Robin Lehner.

That spelled the start of the fightback as Dillon Dube made it a one-goal game towards the end of the middle frame, collecting a pinpoint pass from Mikael Backlund before ripping an unstoppable wrister past Lehner.

And the Flames, despite being outshot 10-5 in the third period, made it a tied game in the final minutes thanks to Matthew Tkachuk, who backhanded the puck in the net with Lehner stranded all at sea.

But, credit where credit is due, the Golden Knights refused to crumble and they avoided going to overtime thanks to Shea Theodore.

With only a couple of minutes remaining, the defenseman fired a shot towards goal and it bounced off a stick and over Calgary goalie David Rittich for the go-ahead goal.

It was a huge moment in the game and Jonathan Marchessault iced the contest in the waning seconds after scoring an empty-netter.

This was a massive win for the Vegas Golden Knights who reclaimed top spot in the Pacific Division ahead of a huge showdown with the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.

Let’s go over some notes and stats from the game…

Notes & Stats

This was the Vegas Golden Knights Lineup to start the game…

Marchessault-Stastny-Smith
Pacioretty-Karlsson-Roy
Pirri-Stephenson-Cousins
Carrier-Nosek-Reaves

McNabb-Schmidt
Martinez-Theodore
Holden-Whitecloud

Lehner

Here are some key stats from the game:

• SOG – VGK: 32 – CAL: 22
• FO% – VGK: 51% – CAL: 49%
• PP – VGK: 1/1 – CAL: 1/1
• PIM – VGK: 2 – CAL: 2
• HITS – VGK: 9 – CAL: 26
• BLKS – VGK: 10 – CAL: 26
• GVA – VGK: 7 – CAL: 8

Here was the Official Scoring Summary from the game:

• Tomas Nosek (8) – Reaves (7), Holden (8) – 5:24 / 1st
• Nick Holden (6) – Cousins (15), Pirri (2) – 11:49 / 1st
• Max Pacioretty (32) – PPG – Karlsson (30), Stastny (21) – 3:39 / 2nd
• Milan Lucic (8) – Unassisted – 8:23 / 2nd
• Dillon Dube (6) – PPG – Backlund (29), Lucic (12) – 16:32 / 2nd
• Matthew Tkachuk (23) – Mangiapane (15), Gustafsson (23) – 17:00 / 3rd
• Shea Theodore (12) – Martinez (12), Stephenson (15) – 18:50 / 3rd
• Jonathan Marchessault (21) – Smith (26), Karlsson (31) – 19:42 / 3rd

Let’s go over some notes from the game:

• The Vegas Golden Knights are now 38-24-8 on the year and 1-1-0 on this road trip after beating the Calgary Flames on Sunday.
• In winning a big one at the Scotiabank Saddledome, the Knights moved back to the top of the Pacific Division, holding a two-point lead over the Edmonton Oilers.
• And the Golden Knights are now 16-13-4 on the road this year after beating the Flames in what was a real-biter.
• What matters is the fact that Vegas came out on top but it wasn’t pretty, and the Knights didn’t make it easy on themselves.
• After allowing the first goal on the first shot of the game in three of their last four outings, the Golden Knights actually came out with a swagger in the first period.
• But, after building a three-goal lead, the Knights imploded in the second period and it led to three unanswered goals for the Flames, who made it a tied game at 17:00 in the third period.
• At that point, you were left fearing the worst but, credit where credit is due, the Golden Knights regained their composure at just the right time to win the game thanks to Shea Theodore’s game-winner.
• In truth, it was a bad bounce but you need luck to be on your side during the course of an 82-game regular season, and the hockey gods were certainly smiling down upon the Golden Knights last night.
• It was a huge win but the job is only half done for Vegas who face the Edmonton Oilers in a gigantic clash tonight.
• Robin Lehner stopped 19 of the 22 shots he faced and the goaltender is now 3-0-0 in his first three starts for Vegas with a 1.67 Save Percentage and a .940 Save Percentage. Not bad at all.
• Nick Holden, who recently signed a two-year extension with an average annual value of $1.7 million, has gone through a rough patch since the Trade Deadline but he rebounded with a two-point night (one goal, one assists).
• William Karlsson also registered a two-point night with two assists, including a beautiful dish on Max Pacioretty’s 32nd goal of the year, which came on the power play.
• Shea Theodore is continuing to dominate this year and the defenseman scored the game-winner, making it 12 goals and 33 assists for 45 points in 70 games.
• Speaking of Theodore, the defenseman has meshed incredibly well with Alec Martinez and that has all the makings of a real nice defensive pairing for the Golden Knights. Martinez tallied a primary assist on Theodore’s goal, making it seven points (two goals, five assists) in nine games for Vegas.
• Ryan Reaves tallied a primary helper on Tomas Nosek’s goal, taking him to 15 points (eight goals, seven assists) on the year and just five points away from equalling his career-high of 20 points set last year. And who said that Reaves is only a one-trick pony?
• Vegas outshot the Flames 32-22, they won the faceoff battle with a winning percentage of 51%, although they were outhit 26-9 and they also blocked just 10 shots compared to Calgary’s 26.
• The Golden Knights went 1-for-1 on the power play, which is currently operating at a 21.7 clip, ranked 8th in the NHL.
• The Flames also went 1-for-1 on the power play and the Knights are struggling on the PK, which is ranked 28th in the league (76.6).
• Brayden McNabb led all Vegas Golden Knights skaters in total ice time with 23:13, including 1:05 of shorthanded time.