The Vegas Golden Knights (5-2-1) pulled off some Nevada Day magic with a dramatic come-from-behind 6-4 win against the visiting Ottawa Senators (4-3-0) Friday afternoon at T-Mobile Arena.
Vegas scored on three consecutive shots to rally from a 4-3 deficit late in the third period. The equalizer and go-ahead goal came in the span of 60 seconds, and Vegas added an empty-net goal to seal the win 25 seconds later.
The Golden Knights are a perfect 5-0-0 on home ice this season.
Ivan Barbashev scored twice, the top line combined for six points and Alex Pietrangelo tallied three assists in the win. Tanner Pearson made several key plays to turn the game around in the third, including setting up Keegan Kolesar’s game-winner, and Adin Hill turned aside 35 of 39 shots for his third win of the year.
The afternoon marked Michael Amadio’s return to Vegas, though the Golden Knights held him to a minus-two rating and no shots in 14:22.
First period
For the first time this season, the Golden Knights fell into a 2–0 hole.
Adam Gaudette lit the lamp just 2:40 into the contest off a feed from behind the net.
A fantastic individual effort by Claude Giroux resulted in Ottawa doubling its lead roughly 10 minutes later.
With 2:37 remaining in the opening frame, Nicolas Roy cut the deficit in half after two seam passes from Pietrangelo to Pearson to Roy left Roy alone in front.
Just 21 seconds later, Nicolas Hague’s point shot took a favorable bounce, hitting a Senator on its way into the net to even things up at 2-2.
But the see-saw battle continued, as the Senators stormed right back to take a 3-2 lead 50 seconds later. It was Drake Batherson who took advantage of a Brayden McNabb turnover and beat Hill cleanly from the slot.
For the first time this season, the Golden Knights trailed after 20 minutes.
Second period
But once again, Vegas went to work and erased the deficit, as a Pietrangelo point shot was tipped by Barbashev just 6:40 into the middle frame.
The Senators had a series of strong scoring chances right after the goal, but Hill came up with big stops to keep things even at 3-3.
But on their first power play of the game, the Senators cashed in off the rush when Gaudette beat Hill for his second goal of the game.
The Senators outshot Vegas 16-8 in the period, but Vegas trailed by just one heading into the third.
Third period
Hague was not on the bench to start the third and did not return to action after suffering a lower-body injury.
In order to keep Vegas within one, Hill came up with some huge saves on an early Ottawa power play.
With 5:05 remaining, Pearson drew a critical penalty on Nick Cousins. It then looked like the Golden Knights were about to get a 5-on-3 opportunity when Thomas Chabot sent the puck out of play, though the officials ruled that it went into the Senators bench.
It didn’t deter Vegas, though, and the extended deliberation gave the top unit time to rest.
For the third time, the Golden Knights reset the score.
With less than 10 seconds remaining on the man-advantage, Tomas Hertl scored his third goal in two games and fourth of the season. Vegas’ favorite power-play sequence came through once again, as Eichel and Stone set up Hertl in the bumper. Hertl’s one-timer beat Linus Ullmark five-hole, knotting things up with 3:11 left in regulation.
Noah Hanifin and McNabb shut down two Ottawa chances to prevent a quick-strike response, and the Golden Knights set off on the rush as Pearson made his presence felt once again. Pearson flew out of the zone and fed a seam pass to Kolesar, who beat Ullmark on an absolute snipe.
With 2:11 remaining, the Golden Knights took their first lead of the game. Just 25 seconds later, Barbashev scored his second of the game and seventh of the year to seal the 6-4 win.
As Hertl put it after the game, the Golden Knights’ performance “wasn’t nice, but nobody is asking how, it just matters that we got two points.”
This was far from Vegas’ best effort.
“To be honest, it was kind of a wakeup call for us,” Barbashev said. “I don’t think we played our best today. I think we just let them push us around for 50 minutes of the game. We all know we have to be better.”
The Golden Knights gave up another four goals, were outshot 39-28, struggled to defend the rush, made mistakes, turned the puck over and lost a lot of battles.
“You’re going to win games through the course of 82 games when you’re not at your best, and we weren’t,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We were awful at times. But at the end of the day, you have to get to your game sooner or later, and it started to come.”
The end of the third period was vintage Golden Knights hockey, and this was an important win for a club that is still trying to put the pieces together.
“It’s a long season, lot of games. … But if you still can find a way to win it, it’s really important,” Hertl said. “Every point counts, especially at the end of the season.”
The comeback also helps remove some of the sting from disappointments like the end of the game in Tampa Bay, or the 0-2-1 road trip as a whole.
In back-to-back games against Tampa and Florida, the Golden Knights blew six one-goal leads and came away with one point.
Against the Senators, Vegas battled back to tie the game on three separate occasions and then scored on three straight shots in 85 seconds. The ice completely tilted when Hertl scored in the final seconds of the power play in the final five minutes of the game, and the Golden Knights rode that momentum to victory, collecting another two points at home.
“It shows the character of the team,” Barbashev said, adding that it was nice to be on the other side of a late come-from-behind win.
All in all, it was a good example of Vegas’ resilience, which was particularly true for Hill.
It was the fourth time in five starts that he gave up four goals, and he finished with a save percentage below .900 (.897) for the fifth time in five games.
But after giving up three goals in the first period, Hill stopped 24 of the last 25 shots he faced, including all nine in the third period.
“The numbers aren’t great for him,” Cassidy said, adding that Hill was “leaky” on the first two goals. “You’re a little bit worried because now they’re not great shots, they’re just finding a way to get through him.”
But Cassidy said Hill settled in in the second period. He didn’t face “a lot of high-end chances, but he froze pucks when we got stuck in our end. We were not good on the walls in the second period. We didn’t manage the puck well to get it out of our end, and he froze pucks a lot. So he made the saves, controlled his rebound, so it kind of allowed us to get through that period.”
Hill seemed to grow more focused and poised as the game went on, and he shut the door in the third.
The Golden Knights only led for 2:11, but they were never out of it, and Hill had a hand in that.
He wasn’t alone.
Pietrangelo had another strong game, and he and Hanifin looked electric in the offensive zone. Kolesar’s game-winner reflected his elevated level of confidence this season, as he could have dropped the puck off to the trailing Hanifin. Instead, he gathered the puck, eyed his target and found twine.
Barbashev has seven goals in eight games, Eichel and Stone continue to pile up the points, Hertl has completely transformed the power play and gives Vegas a different element with his net-front play, and 11 different players found the scoresheet.
There are certainly areas of Vegas’ game that need work, including generating more at the start of periods, winning battles in front of the net, defending the rush and being more consistent in the neutral zone, among other things.
However, the Golden Knights are finding ways to win.
They will look to do so for the third straight game and sixth straight at home when they take on the Sharks Saturday night in the second half of a back-to-back. Cassidy did not have an update on Hague after the game but didn’t rule him out against San Jose.
