Vegas Golden Knights enters Sunday night’s game at Vancouver clings to a three-point lead in the Pacific Division and tries to swipe a back-to-back for third straight time.
Vegas (46-22-8, 100 points), who held a nine-point lead in the Pacific just a week earlier on March 29, is narrowing to see that the margin decreased to one point before leaving a 3-2 overtime victory at Calgary on Saturday night.
Golden Knights gave up two goals over a 51-second span at the end of the second period and the beginning of the third to waste a 2-0 lead. They needed backup goalkeeper Akira Schmid to make a glove rescue at Mikael Backlund’s brief interruption, try with only two seconds left just to get to overtime.
“If he doesn’t save it in the end, we don’t get any points,” said Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy.
Reilly Smith won it with his second goal in the game with 28.4 seconds left in OT. His backhand passes from the left corner behind the finish line caromade by the skating by defender Mackenzie Weeger and then from the right axis on goalkeeper Dustin Wolf and into the network for the game winner.
“I was just trying to get the puck in front of Brett (Howden),” Smith said. “It took a happy bounce.”
Smith admitted the team’s flight from Calgary to Vancouver afterwards would be much smoother after the dramatic victory. Golden Knights leads Los Angeles King’s second place with three points with six matches left for both teams.
“A little relief for sure,” Smith said. “I think we did enough in the game to win. Sometimes you do not bounce your way and the team claws in again. I don’t think there was any real panic in this dressing room at all throughout the game. … Just keep the foot on the gas and you will get a happy bounce every now and then, and that’s good for us right now.”
Cassidy said to win the Pacific Division can pay dividends when the playoffs begin.
“If we win the title, we guarantee less travel and Hemis,” Cassidy said. “We have been really good at home (27-9-3) this year, and the journey can be a factor. Team out west know it. It can be a factor if you have an extended driving. It’s all” If is “, and that’s something we want. Our guys are competitive. They want to win.”
Vancouver (35-28-13, 83 points) is six points behind Minnesota in the race for the last joke in the Western Conference. Canucks comes in for a 6-2 victory over visiting Anaheim on Saturday afternoon who saw Rick Tocchets squad five goals over a span of 4:30 during the first period on the way to a 5-1 lead. It was a franchise record for the fastest five goals at any time in a game.
Quinn Hughes had two assists, Brock Boeser had one goal and one assist and Thatcher Demko made 30 rescues for Canucks who snapped a three-game lost line (0-2-1).
“Getting to the season is slim,” Tocchet said. “We talked (on Friday) about details and professionalism, it is something we have to work on every day, so had to give them a lot of credit. Really liked the first period, a lot of fun to look at the guys do some games.”
This is the third of four meetings with regular season between the two teams. Vegas won the first two with identical 3-1 points on December 19 and February 22 in Las Vegas.
-Field Level Media
