Robin Lehner made 36 saves and had an assist and the visiting Vegas Golden Knights, despite being outshot 22-1 to start the game, rallied to score five unanswered goals and pull out a 5-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.
Alex Pietrangelo and Chandler Stephenson each had a goal and an assist and Jonathan Marchessault, Dylan Coghlan and Brayden McNabb also scored for Vegas. The Golden Knights were outshot 20-1 in the first period, a franchise record for fewest shots in a period.
Nick Suzuki had a goal and an assist and Tyler Toffoli also scored for Montreal. Jake Allen stopped 13 of 16 shots.
Montreal, booed off the ice following a 6-2 loss to the New York Islanders on Thursday night, dominated the first period. The Canadiens fired the first 12 shots on goal until Pietrangelo flipped a shot from the right point, the only shot of the period for Vegas, with 9:02 left.
Still, thanks to Lehner’s goaltending, it remained a scoreless tie until Suzuki finally broke through with a power-play goal at the 17:18 mark, putting in a rebound of a Mike Hoffman shot past a diving Lehner for his third goal of the season.
Montreal made it 2-0 just 91 seconds later on Toffoli’s third goal of the season when he took a stretch pass from Brendan Gallagher between McNabb and Coghlan and then went in on a breakaway and beat Lehner with a backhand shot.
But Vegas rebounded with three goals on seven shots in less than seven minutes in the second period. Pietrangelo got the first at the 5:16 mark when he one-timed a pass from Shea Theodore from the top of the left circle past Allen’s blocker side for his first goal of the season. It also snapped an 0-for-37 power play drought for the Golden Knights dating to Game 4 of their Western Conference second-round playoff series against Colorado.
Marchessault tied it, 2-2, with this fifth goal of the season and third in two games, backhanding in a rebound. Coghlan then gave Vegas the lead with another power-play goal with a wrist shot from the top of the right circle past a screen that beat Allen on the short side.
Montreal pulled Allen for an extra attacker with 2:58 left and Stephenson made it 4-2 just seven seconds later when with an empty-net goal.
McNabb added another empty-netter with 34.9 seconds to go when he took a pass from Lehner at the right side of the net and lofted a length-of-the-ice shot into the opposite net for his first goal of the season.
–Field Level Media