*Photo from Knights on Ice*
This was a night to remember for a few rookies. Pavel Dorofeyev scored, William Karlsson had a goal and an assist, and the Vegas Golden Knights defeated the St. Louis Blues with a 5-3 victory on Sunday night in St. Louis.
Karlsson, Dorofeyev, and Alex Pietrangelo each had a goal and an assist for the Golden Knights, with Reilly Smith also having a two assist game. Vegas also won their 3rd straight game and 6th out of 7, now with a 3 point cushion on the Los Angeles Kings in the Pacific Division race.
Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy said that "We just kept playing. It was a good goal by them. I don’t look at it as a huge breakdown after breakdown after breakdown. That’s when you get worried. So they made a good play. They can score, but we also know they can give up some goals so we just said let’s just stick with it, get back to work, and we did."
It was Karlsson who got the scoring started, giving Vegas a 1-0 lead on his 13th goal of the season, assisted by Dorofeyev and Smith 8:05 into the game. On the power play 13:26 into the period, Jakub Vrana scored his 3rd goal of the season to get the Blues on the board, making it 1-1 with assists from Jordan Kyrou and Brayden Schenn.
Just 28 seconds into the second period, Jonathan Marchessault scored for Vegas to increase their lead to 2-1. Shortly after that, at the 2:10 mark of the second, Michael Amadio widened the lead to 3-1 with assists from Brett Howden and Nicolas Hague. Jordan Kyrou then cut the Blues deficit to 3-2 with his 30th goal of the season.
Tyler Pitlick scored for the Blues 3:41 into the 3rd period, tying the game 3-3 on his 5th goal of the season. Dorofeyev then scored his first NHL goal when the puck deflected off his mask and into the net at the 5:23 mark of the 3rd period in his 6th career game. Alex Pietrangelo sealed the win on an empty net goal.
Cassidy said of Dorofeyev's game that "He created a turnover on the first goal with foot speed. I thought on his off wing he was able to get in on the inside a lot, to be dangerous there, went into traffic. He was kind of slippery around there. They scored early on us, they made a nice play. We dug in and worked hard to get the next goal. Happy for Pav. I thought he had a really good game. Scores off his head, that's one to remember."
Making his NHL debut with plenty of Vegas goalies on the shelf was Jiri Patera, who played a solid game to win his first taste of NHL action. Patera made 30 saves on 33 shots, which was good for a .909 save percentage.
Opposing Patera was Jordan Binnington for the Blues, who fell to 22-24-5 in 51 starts this season. Binnington stopped 26 out of the 30 shots on goal Vegas sent towards him, recording a .867 save percentage.
Blues defenseman Torey Krug summed up the team's play in the loss, saying that "Obviously, the energy was there, the passion, the fight was there. We came up short."
Up next, Vegas gets back in action with a trip to the East Coast to play the Philadelphia Flyers, with Adin Hill projected to start. The Blues get back in action on Wednesday against the Minnesota Wild, with Binnington the expected starter.
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