By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
A different Vancouver Canucks team, playing with more energy and confidence, showed up to play the Vegas Golden Knights Tuesday evening at the NHL Bubble in Edmonton.
The Canucks jumped out to a 2-0 lead over the Vegas Golden Knights after one period thanks to Vancouver goals by Tyler Toffoli (left unguarded at the VGK net for an easy goal) and Bo Horvat (power play) en route to a 5-2 win that knotted the Best-of-7 Round 2 series at 1-1.
It was quite a different game from Game 1, dominated by the Knights in a 5-0 win for the VGK.
VGK forward Mark Stone said after the game he knew Vancouver would come out flying in Game 2 and “definitely played better than us in the first.”
After the Knights cut the Vancouver lead to 2-1 in period two, Canucks forward Elias Pettersson received a gorgeous pass in front of the VGK net and made a nifty move to fake out Knights goalie Robin Lehner and scored to restore his team’s two-goal lead as period two ended with the Canucks leading VGK, 3-1. VGK’s Alex Tuch scored the Knights goal in period two.
A defensive breakdown by the duo of Nate Schmidt and Brayden McNabb allowed Horvat to easily notch his second goal of the game to give the upstart Canucks a 4-1 lead early in period three.
Horvat now leads the postseason in goals with eight after Vancouver defeated the Vegas team for the first time in regulation in the Golden Knights’ three-year history.
“I’m trying to do my part,” Horvat said after the game on NBCSN.
Max Pacioretty added a VGK goal with 1:26 left in period three to cut the score to 4-2. A Vancouver empty-netter wrapped things up for a Canucks 5-2 win.
The Knights had 40 shots on goal to Vancouver’s 27.
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