Tyler Schurr
Jun 10, 20212 min
After facing a 2-0 series deficit, the Vegas Golden Knights won its fourth consecutive game Thursday, June 10 against the Colorado Avalanche to advance to the Stanley Cup Semifinals against the Montreal Canadiens.
The Knights scored six goals in the series clincher and had T-Mobile Arena rocking in the 6-3 victory over the President’s Trophy award recipient.
“Obviously the atmosphere; I mean, I think everybody agrees it’s probably the best place to play in the NHL right now," Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo told ESPN as to why he decided to sign with the Golden Knights. "They play the way I think the game should be played, so you want to go somewhere you feel comfortable and that you can help.”
Vegas will go back to having home-ice advantage in the Stanley Cup Semifinals and will host game one against Montreal.
Montreal awaits Vegas in the next round. They finished the regular season with a record of 24-21-11 and finished as the No. 4 seed in the North Division.
In the opening round of the playoffs, Montreal pulled off the 3-1 series deficit comeback against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
In the next round, they handedly took care of the Winnipeg Jets in a 4-0 sweep.
Game one is Monday, June 14 at T-Mobile Arena.
Puck drop is 6:00 p.m.
Pietrangelo certainly made his impact felt, scoring his first goal of the postseason and assisting on another.
The Knights played a complete game, something they hadn’t done all series long. There were little to no mistakes left on the ice for all three periods of play.
After the game’s opening goal went to Colorado, as it had all series, the Knights responded quickly via defenseman Nick Holden, who fired a one-time goal past Colorado’s Philip Grubauer to tie the game.
Center William Karlsson scored later in the first to give Vegas the 2-1 edge.
The second period began with Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen finding the back of the net on a power play. Rantanen had an impressive performance against Vegas all series.
Ten minutes later, Keegan Kolesar would score his first goal of the postseason on a lightning bolt fired originally from Pietrangelo before Kolesar redirected the puck to the back of the net.
“Dream about playing in games like this,” Kolesar told ESPN. “Very excited to keep this journey going.”
Colorado’s Andre Burakovsky would score afterwards to even the game at 3.
However, Colorado would concede the back-breaker that was Pietrangelo’s goal late in the third period.
The speedy Alex Tuch made a sweet pass to the defensemen who fired it over Grubauer’s shoulder to give Vegas the lead heading into the third period.
The third period was all Vegas thanks to consecutive goals from wingers Will Carrier and Max Pacioretty (empty net).
Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 30-of-33 shots on his way to another postseason win in his illustrious NHL career.
The team embraced him as the crowd roared for the final whistle.
Fleury and the Knights will get a much-needed rest after participating in 13 grueling playoff games against the Minnesota Wild and Avalanche.
Will their Cinderella run continue or will the Knights make amends for previous playoffs blunders and win its first Stanley Cup?