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For the first time since December 17th, the Vegas Golden Knights have won back-to-back games as they defeated the New York Rangers by a final score of 5-1 on Thursday night inside T-Mobile Arena.
“The more you’re making plays, the more your confidence goes up,” center Nicolas Roy said. “I think we made a lot of great plays tonight.”
Vegas now sits with a record of 26-14-5 on the season, good for 57 points in the Pacific Division. The Golden Knights are currently second in the division and they trail Vancouver by seven points for the division lead.
“You need secondary scoring especially when a few of your top guys are missing,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “You need other guys to chip in and keep it out of our net. That’s what happened the last two games.”
Up next for the Golden Knights, the team will wrap up this five-game homestand Saturday, Jan. 20 as they get set to welcome in the Pittsburgh Penguins. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m.
One of the bigger stories of the game was the play of goaltender Logan Thompson who had to come up with save after save after save especially in early portions of each period. Thompson finished his night with 29 saves on 30 shots faced for a final save percentage of .967. He was also awarded the second star of the game.
“We kind of had a sloppy start there and he was unbelievable,” right-winger Jonathan Marchessault said. “He’s been playing well the past couple of games and it’s good that he’s finding his game. There’s been a lot of consistency at the right time and he gives us a chance to win every night. He’s doing well right now.”
Marchessault has scored the game’s first goal with just under nine minutes to go in the first period. He has now scored goals in back-to-back games and holds a share of the team lead with 19 goals scored this season.
Center Ivan Barbashev led the way in scoring for Vegas on Thursday night as he netted a pair of goals including one that came on the power play with 2:01 to go in the second period.
Thursday marked the first meeting of the season between the Golden Knights and Rangers. These two teams are scheduled to meet one more time later this month inside the confines of Madison Square Garden.
It was a historic night for the Golden Knights as the franchise played in their 500th regular season game in franchise history. Vegas grabbed the most points and most wins of any NHL franchise through their first 500 games.
Right-winger Sheldon Rempal made his VGK debut this season on Thursday night and in doing so, he became the 32nd player to play for the Golden Knights this season. 32 different players ranks second in the NHL for most players to play in a season behind San Jose and Chicago who each have had 34 different players play for their respective clubs.
Rempal was called up Thursday afternoon prior to the game Thursday night and played on the third line alongside center Brett Howden and left-winger Brendan Brisson. Rempal finished the night with two shots on goal in just 7:18 of ice time.
Right-winger Keegan Kolesar got in on the scoring action as he scored his third goal of the season with just over a minute and a half to go in the second period to push the Vegas lead out to 4-0.
“It’s another step in the right direction,” Kolesar said. “After coming off a win, you don’t want to take a step backwards like we have been. I think this is the first step into moving forward. We know what it takes with this lineup right now and it’s about replicating it.”