*Photo from The Hockey News*
You can only have one first goal in the NHL, and the kid made it count. Ivan Barbashev had two assists, Brendan Brisson scored, and the Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins with a 3-2 victory on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
The Golden Knights improved to 27-14-5 and have won 3 straight games by beating the Penguins on home ice. They scored 3 unanswered goals to do it, and Brisson's first career goal was the exclamation point on the win for Vegas in just his 3rd NHL game.
Vegas head coach Bruce Cassidy said of the win that "We were going down that path after the second of another shutout, which has happened a lot to us where we didn’t have enough push back when it was necessary. I liked our push, and we kept pushing. We didn’t sit back on our heels. I liked our whole mentality. You need that every once in a while. It keeps the momentum rolling. It could be games you look at later and say, ‘It could have springboard into the next game or stretch."
After a scoreless first period, the Penguins got on the board in the second. Ryan Graves scored 9:02 into the period, making it 1-0 Penguins on his 3rd goal of the season with Erik Karlsson and Evgeni Malkin assisting. Jake Guentzel scored later in the period to double the Penguins lead to 2-0 on his 20th goal of the season.
Jonathan Marchessault scored his 20th goal of the season 5:18 into the 3rd period to get Vegas on the board and make it a 2-1 game. At the 6:52 mark of the period, Pavel Dorofeyev scored to tie the game 2-2 on his 6th goal of the season. Brisson capped the rally at the 9:40 mark of the period with assists from Barbashev and Alex Pietrangelo to make it a 3-2 game.
Brisson said of his goal that "It was crazy. I just put the puck on net. I saw it went in and I just blacked out from there. I don't even know if I celebrated. The storyline’s perfect. It couldn’t have gone any better."
Getting the start in net for the Golden Knights was Logan Thompson, who got the win to improve to 16-9-3 in 27 starts. Thompson stopped 23 of the 25 shots the Penguins sent his way, good for a .920 save percentage.
It was Tristan Jarry who was the starting goalie for the Penguins, getting saddled with the loss. Jarry turned aside 26 out of the 29 shots on goal that the Golden Knights had, recording a .897 save percentage. His record now stands at 12-13-4.
Pittsburgh head coach Mike Sullivan said of the loss that "We didn't defend hard enough. All three of the goals were seemingly nothing plays that ended up in the net. We had numbers back. We got to defend harder, and we've got to have some predictability to how we defend, and we didn't have it."
Both teams get back in action with Monday night road games. Thompson is expected to start for the Golden Knights as they face the New Jersey Devils, while Jarry is the projected starter for the Penguins against the Arizona Coyotes.
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