Golden Knights hang on with 7-5 victory against Blackhawks

Ivan Barbashev scored twice with two assists as the Vegas Golden Knights used a five-goal first to earn a 7-5 victory against the Chicago Blackhawks at T-Mobile Arena on Thursday.

Keegan Kolesar scored twice, while Brett Howden had three assists. Nicolas Hague, Tomas Hertl, and Pavel Dorofeyev also scored for the Golden Knights (35-18-6). Ilay Samsonov made 17 saves in his second consecutive start.

“Probably a coach’s nightmare, right?” Kolesar said. “Good start. All the mistakes that we made were self-inflicted and they capitalized on it. Together, we came out with the win, but like I said, it just wasn’t good enough for us to follow up that good first period.”

Golden Knights’ Strong Start, Falter Later

The Golden Knights scored five goals in the first period, jumping out to a 5-1 lead. It was probably one of the team’s better starts in some time.

The issue came when the Blackhawks came and gave their push. Chicago scored twice in the second and two more in the third. They got within one near the midway mark of the third period.

Vegas got goals in the second and third period to keep the Blackhawks at bay.

“Offensively, we did a lot of good things. You know, we scored seven goals and got a lot of good looks from that end,” Vegas defenseman Noah Hanifin said. “Defensively, [we’re struggling in] certain areas in between the blue lines. We turned some pucks over, which led to some of their goals and their transitions. So it’s just things that we can clean up and we can simplify a little bit in those situations, especially when you have a lead like we did. We don’t want to give them chances. We want to be able to shut those games down. But yeah, of course, we got the win. There were some positives to take away for sure.”

Going Direct

The Barbashev-Howden-Kolesar line accounted for four goals and five assists. They were unstoppable for most of the game and came through big in the second and third periods when the Golden Knights desperately needed a goal to keep the game out of reach.

It was all part of a shift in the forward lines where Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy wanted to get Barbashev going on the forecheck with more direct players.

“We were pretty direct, and we were getting a lot of pucks back,” Barbashev said. “This is a positive thing, especially for me. I’ve got to get that going. Thanks to ‘Howie’ and Keegan, they helped me out today.

The entire line played well, finishing a collective plus-8 in the plus-minus.

You want to go over the boards and make an impact in the game however it may be,” Kolesar said. “So for us offensively, we made an impact, but I thought a lot of it also came from just being good on the boards, winning our D-zone battles, and then transitioning well.”

Samsonov Struggles In Win

Despite getting the win, Samsnov struggled in the net again. After giving up four in the third period against the Los Angeles Kings, he gave up five goals on 22 shots.

Cassidy doesn’t expect his goalie’s confidence to be shaken, however, and expects Samsonov to bounce back soon with the coaches’ help.

“We’ll keep doing our part, and he’ll have to dig in,” Cassidy said. “He’s been in the league a while. He knows there’s ups and downs at his position. You’ll have to work through it. That’s, to me, it’s always the best way to keep grinding. You work through it. You work on your details, and hopefully it comes around for you. So that’s how I figure he’ll handle it as a veteran guy.”