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Vegas Golden Knights captain Mark Stone came up big for his team when they needed it the most on Saturday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Stone was responsible for scoring the game-winning goal in a shootout to give Vegas a 3-2 win Saturday, Jan. 29 over the defending Stanley Cup Champions and secure five out of a possible eight points on this road trip.
“It was pretty fun,” Vegas goalie Robin Lehner said. “It’s a big point for us. I just tried to do my best and we had a few nice guys from our guys who stepped up.”
This marked the third game in a row that Lehner has posted a save percentage greater than .900. He finished the evening with 27 saves on 29 shot attempts for a final save percentage of .931.
On the other side, Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy saved 25 of the 27 shot attempts he faced for a final save percentage of .926.
When you look at this game, there can be a strong argument made that this game should have never gone past regulation to decide a winner. Vegas scored one goal in each of the first two periods while not allowing a goal in either of those two periods.
Vegas head coach Pete DeBoer even mentioned after the game that, “I don’t think we could play better than we did the first 40 minutes against that team.”
Vegas held a lead in this game for 51:47 of the 60-minute regulation time and all signs were pointing to a VGK 2-0 win.
That all changed within a four minute time period where Tampa was able to get goals from left-wing Ross Colton and right-wing Corey Perry to tie the game up with 2:48 to go in regulation.
The Knights didn’t back down from the comeback and stayed the course throughout the overtime period and in the shootout which left fans from both sides on the edge of their seats.
Vegas missed on its first three opportunities to win the game in the shootout but would be kept alive with a critical goal from center William Karlsson to extend the shootout and some key stops from Lehner.
By the seventh frame of the shootout, both teams went pretty deep on their bench for shooters in the shootout and it was Stone’s turn to try and win it for Vegas.
He buried one past the blocker of Vasilevskiy to send the visitors back to Sin City on a high note.
The Knights will return back to the Fortress for one final home game before the All-Star break as they get set to welcome in the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday, Feb. 1.
Puck drop is set for 7:00 p.m. PST and can be seen on AT&T Sportsnet in Las Vegas. Fans interested in attending the game are encouraged to visit AXS.com for ticket information.