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The Vegas Golden Knights got a big lift from their captain Mark Stone on Monday afternoon when he netted three goals in a hat trick that helped the team cruise past the Nashville Predators, 4-1, inside the T-Mobile Arena.
That goes down as Stone’s first career regular season hat trick while becoming the 12th in VGK team history and eighth inside T-Mobile Arena.
“It was a good team win,” Stone said. “We had a pretty slow start, the first six or seven minutes weren't great. It was a similar game to Calgary except our penalty kill stepped up in the first period and got us some momentum. I thought with about five minutes left in the first, we really started to find our game. We got some pucks behind their defense and got some offensive zone time which led to a really good second period for us.”
Vegas is now 25-14-5 on the season with 55 points, good for second place in the Pacific Division. Vancouver currently leads the division with 62 points.
Up next for the Golden Knights, they continue their homestand Thursday, Jan. 18 as they get set to welcome in the New York Rangers. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m.
“He’s pretty good,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Him and [center Chandler] Stephenson were on. The whole line looks good together. We needed a game like that every once in a while, especially lately or maybe an individual goes above and beyond. It was good timing for us.”
Stephenson and left-winger Pavel Dorofeyev each finished with two assists while right-winger Jonathan Marchessault netted the fourth Vegas goal which was an empty net goal with less than 30 seconds left in regulation to seal the game for the Knights.
Monday was Marchessault’s 600th career NHL game. He is now the 11th active undrafted player to play in at least 600 career games.
Dorofeyev also notched his second multi-point game of the season and fifth of his career.
The Golden Knights were dealing with some significant injuries coming into the game including a lower-body injury to center Jack Eichel that he suffered in a game last week against the Boston Bruins. Eichel had successful lower-body surgery Tuesday and is week-to-week according to the franchise.
“We're missing some good guys,” Stone said. “We need everyone to step up and I thought we did a really good job.”
Another player that the Golden Knights are waiting to get healthy is goaltender Adin Hill, who was originally set to play last week against Colorado but couldn’t get medically cleared on the day of the game which led to backup Jiri Patera getting the start in that game.
Since the Avalanche game, it’s been goalie Logan Thompson getting the starts and Monday’s game against Nashville was no different.
Thompson finished Monday’s contest making 34 saves on 35 shots faced for a final save percentage of .971. The team has played pretty well when Thompson gives up two or less goals in a game.
The lone goal scorer for the Predators was right-winger Luke Evangelista who scored with under three minutes to go in the second period to make it a 2-1 game. Stone responded about two minutes later to make it a 3-1 game heading into the 2nd intermission.
Center Brendan Brisson made his first career start for the Golden Knights on Monday after being called up from the Silver Knights to fill in for the injured Eichel. In his debut, Brisson finished with 11:08 of ice time and one shot on goal.
“It was a great feeling to get the win,” Brisson said. “All the boys were great to me and I felt comfortable right away. A lot of that is on them and that was awesome.”
Brisson is the 12th Vegas Golden Knight draft pick to play for the franchise and he was one of six VGK draft picks to play in Monday’s game.