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Trailing by three goals wasn’t enough to keep the Vegas Golden Knights from maintaining their road win streak.
Vegas disposed of Philadelphia, 5-4, via a shootout Monday, Nov. 25 from the Wells Fargo Center on Hockey Fights Cancer Night. It was the team’s first game back in the states after playing the first three games of its five-game road trip north of the border in Canada.
“Not our best,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “But you’re never going to be unhappy when you win.”
That makes it three straight wins for the Golden Knights on this road trip. Additionally, the team has won five of its last seven outings and seven of its last 11.
As a result, Vegas is 14-6-2 this season with 30 points. As of now, the franchise sits atop of the Pacific Division with Calgary and Los Angeles creeping behind with 27 and 25 points respectively.
That five-game road trip will wrap up with a Wednesday, Nov. 27 date against the Colorado Avalanche from Ball Arena. Puck drop is scheduled for 7 p.m.
Goalie Ilya Samsonov saved his best work for last in the team’s shootout win over the Flyers. He had to overcome about 20 seconds of commotion in the form of a serious scrum in front of his net during the final moments of regulation.
Samsonov then turned away all three shots he faced during the shootout period after pitching a scoreless overtime session.
“You get saves [and] it gives you juice,” Cassidy said. “Especially when you know you’ve been loose with the puck or missed assignments. If they’re all going in and they were early. If a team is fragile, it can start to go the other way and we’re not.”
In the first period, Samsonov gave up two goals as part of a scoreless first 20-minute session for the Golden Knights. He’d eventually fall behind 3-0 after another goal just 28 seconds into the second period.
Samsonov finished with 32 saves on the night for a final save percentage of .889.
“It was two different games for him,” Cassidy said. “I was concerned early […] We haven’t practiced much because of our schedule, our manpower — we’ve had some injuries. And these are the games where it shows.”
A very busy second period offensively is what jump started Vegas and ultimately got it back into the game. The visitors squared up 20 shots on goal in the second period after mustering just four in the first.
“At the end of the day, it’s 3-0,” Cassidy said. “It’s easy to say, ‘Let’s move on, we’ll get ready for the next one.’ But our guys dug in. I didn’t think we were that far behind in terms of our ability to catch up, we have goal-scorers in the room.”
Center Jack Eichel scored the team’s first and final goals of the night beginning with his first off an assist from top line teammate Ivan Barbashev. The pair would swap positions for the next score as Barbie lit the lamp on an Eichel’ assisted goal.
“We’re relying on our top guys again,” Cassidy said. “You need your top players to win but some nights you need different people chipping in. That’s what you hope for when guys are out.”
Left-wing Pavel Dorofeyev scored the third VGK goal of the second period on the team’s lone power play chance of the night. He scored his 11th goal of the year just five seconds into the extra-man advantage.
There were five total goals in the second period just two nights after Vegas scored five by itself in the second period against Montreal.
“We know they have young goaltenders,” Cassidy said. “You never know what can happen. You let one or two in and they may start feeling it. Ultimately, that’s what happened and then we started getting saves.”
Veteran Tanner Pearson tied the game at four with just over eight minutes left in regulation on his fifth goal of the season.
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