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The Vegas Golden Knights got their first game-one win of the 2021 Stanley Cup Semifinals in a 4-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens Monday, June 14 from the T-Mobile Arena.
Prior to Monday’s game versus Montreal, Vegas had lost consecutive game ones against the Minnesota Wild and the Colorado Avalanche in the two previous rounds.
The Knights came out stale against the Canadiens, who had their foot on the gas pedal.
Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury had perhaps his most impressive performance of the playoffs rivaling his heroic game five effort against Colorado.
Fleury finished with 28 saves on 29 shot attempts.
“The first goal was huge, and at the right time too in the first period for us with how we were playing,” Vegas coach Peter DeBoer told ESPN. “Gave us a little bit of an opportunity to take a deep breath and kind of gather ourselves and find our game. Thankfully (Fleury) was our best player, gave us a chance to get our legs, and then I really liked our game in the second and third.”
The win was Fleury’s 90th career playoff win. He’ll go for win No. 91 Wednesday, June 16 for game two.
Defenseman Shea Theodore, who has been the target of fan’s pitchforks all season long, had his most productive game of the postseason.
Theodore scored his first goal of the postseason to give Vegas a 1-0 lead.
He would also find fellow defenseman Alec Martinez on a crafty pass leading to the one-timer to give the Knights a 2-0 lead in the second period.
Montreal’s Cole Caufield found space on a power play to put the Canadiens on the board bringing the score to 2-1.
Vegas never lost momentum, however, as game-seven hero Mattias Janmark fired in his fourth goal of the playoffs.
Fleury did Fleury things before defenseman Nick Holden scored and Vegas would hold on to take the 1-0 series lead over Montreal.
It was an impressive opening win for the Knights given three of the team’s top offensive threats had quiet games.
The phenomenal trio of Jonathan Marchessault, Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone failed to record a point, yet the Knights still took care of business.