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The Vegas Golden Knights put away the Minnesota Wild following a third period scoring barrage resulting in the team’s 14th win of the season.
VGK beat Minnesota, 5-1, Wednesday, March 3 from the T-Mobile Arena.
The 5-1 victory for Vegas is its fourth straight win.
Vegas sits atop the West Division at 14-4-1.
Up next, the Knights travel to San Jose to play the all-too familiar Sharks, De Boer’s former club. Puck drop is at 7:30 p.m. on Friday March, 5.
After dominating the overall possession battle for a majority of the first two periods, the Knights went into prevent mode for the third period allowing a season-high in shots for the final period of play.
However, the high number of shots didn’t sway Vegas.
“Yeah, they’re a good team,” head coach Pete DeBoer said. “They came in on a six or seven game win streak, and you can see why. I thought we bent but didn’t break in some key moments.”
Starting goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was kept busy by the attacking Wild and finished with 36 saves on 37 shot attempts.
The offense has picked it up in the two games against the Wild, scoring 10 goals over the span of two contests.
Right-wing Alex Tuch picked things up where he left off by scoring the game’s first goal in the first period assisted by center Cody Glass and defenseman Nicolas Hague.
The consistent, Jonathan Marchessault, scored his seventh goal of the season in the second.
Minnesota’s Marcus Foligno would respond by hitting in a rebounded shot off a Fleury save to put the game at 2-1, Vegas.
Although Vegas had eight penalty minutes, they could not convert on any power play goals. On the other end of the ice, the Knights killed three Wild penalties.
The first 10 minutes of the third period featured penalty kills and defensive blocked shots by VGK.
The second half featured instant offense to put the game away.
Captain Mark Stone would mail in his fifth goal of the season on a two-on-one fast break up the ice with teammate center Chandler Stephenson, who beat his defender to the left before quickly sweeping the puck across ice to Stone who beamed a shot far post against goaltender Cam Talbot.
Stephenson followed up Stone’s goal with a tricky goal of his own, losing Talbot in the process on a “juke” like move.
Incumbent center William Karlsson would put the game away on a carried in goal via an empty net late in the third period.