Kirby Dach broke the tie midway through the third period and the Montreal hockey club erased a two-goal deficit before defeating the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 on Tuesday at T-Mobile Arena.
The Habs thus won a third match in a row and recorded a sixth victory in seven games. He also ended a seven-game losing streak against the Golden Knights, whom he hadn’t beaten since June 24, 2021 when he won Game 6 of their Stanley Cup semi-final series.
Martin St-Louis’ troops lacked opportunism at the start of the game and made some costly errors which allowed the Golden Knights to take control of the score.
The Canadian, however, did not give up and increased his record to 1-13-0 this season when he was behind after two periods of play.
Cole Caufield and Emil Heineman also hit the target for the Canadian (17-17-3). Samuel Montembeault stopped 27 shots.
Zach Whitecloud and Noah Hanifin scored for the Golden Knights (25-9-3), who had won their previous six games and suffered just one loss in their previous 11 games. Adin Hill stopped 19 shots.
The Canadian will take charge again on Friday, when he visits the Chicago Blackhawks. He will then complete his holiday trip by facing the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday in Denver.
Samuel Montembeault stopped 27 shots.
(David Becker/AP)
A delay erased
Both teams quickly had good scoring opportunities, but it was the Golden Knights who took advantage to open the scoring after 2:23 of play. Tomas Hertl gave up the puck to Whitecloud entering the zone in the slot and the defender surprised Montembeault on the glove side.
The Canadian controlled the game during the second half of the first period. Josh Anderson had two good scoring chances, but he was unable to beat Hill.
In neutral for a while, the Golden Knights found a way to widen the gap to 2-0 with 11.6 seconds left in the first period. Hanifin recovered a lost puck in the slot and beat Montembeault on the shield side.
The Habs also got off to a good start in the second period. However, he was often imprecise when he had the opportunity to take dangerous shots.
The tide slowly turned in favor of the Golden Knights, who were particularly threatening during a power play. Montembeault, however, made good saves against Victor Olofsson and Jack Eichel. He was also lucky when Hertl hit the post.
The Canadian finally found a way to get back into the game, when Caufield scored with 2:33 left in the middle period. Caufield completed a nice exchange started by Juraj Slafkovsky and Nick Suzuki to score his 19th goal of the season — and his 100th of his NHL career.
Pavel Dorofeyev surprised Montembeault at the end of the second period, but the goal did not count since the dial already indicated zero everywhere.
Hill preserved the Golden Knights’ one-goal lead for a few moments early in the third period, but Heineman brought everyone back to square one at 7:58. He scored on a return after a shot from David Savard.
Dach then gave the Canadian the lead at 10:09 during a two-on-one attack. He appeared to attempt a backhand pass to Patrik Laine, but the puck instead slipped between Hill’s pads.
The Habs did a good job at the end of the game to help Montembeault close the books. The Quebec goalkeeper, however, was smoking at the expense of Hanifin and Olofsson with around ten seconds remaining.
