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The Vegas Golden Knights put an end to their two-game losing streak Thursday, Nov. 17 as they defeated the Arizona Coyotes, 4-1.
“I thought we stuck to it,” defensemen Alex Pietrangelo said. “I don’t think we had great energy to start and then we got the energy back in the building and we carried that momentum.”
Pietrangelo finished his evening with three points (one goal and two assists). Pietrangelo now has 17 points on the season (two goals, 15 assists).
“Sometimes you just kind of get lucky and sometimes you go through spells where you get nothing,” Pietrangelo said.
Vegas has now scored four or more goals in 10 of their 14 wins this season and haven’t lost a game when they score at least three goals in a game.
One thing that head coach Bruce Cassidy harped on in their last game against the Sharks was needing to improve the special teams play both on the power play and on the penalty kill.
Thursday night saw an improvement in both of those categories as Vegas scored on one of their five power play opportunities while killing off all penalties the team faced on the other side.
“I think our power play got better as the game went along and started generating the looks that were available to us,” Cassidy said.
It took a while to get some generated, but Pietrangelo broke the scoreless tie with 7:39 to play in the second period when he scored on the power play. His goal was the first goal scored at home by a defenseman this season.
Left-wing William Carrier and right-wings Mark Stone and Reilly Smith each had goals in this one to go along with Pietrangelo. Carrier scored his fourth of the season, Stone scored his fifth of the year and Smith scored his ninth of the season.
To go along with a great penalty kill, goaltender Logan Thompson made sure not much was getting by him as the starting goaltender for Vegas. Thompson saved 25 of the 26 shots he faced for a final save percentage of .962.
“I think we’ve been great all year,” Thompson said. “I think we maybe got away from it a couple of times over the past couple games but tonight we locked down and made my life really easy.”
With the win, Vegas improves to 14-4-0 on the season with 28 points, still on top of the Pacific division. The Knights lead the division by five points over the Los Angeles Kings.
The Boston Bruins have the most points in the NHL with 30 while Vegas is tied with New Jersey for the second most points with 28.
Vegas will be in Canada for the next two games as they play the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday. Puck drop is set for 7:00 p.m. and can be seen on AT&T Sportsnet.