Golden Knights Lose Third Straight At Home, Suffer 2-1 Loss To Minnesota Wild Saturday
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Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
Tickets start at $120 to attend today’s Minnesota Wild vs Vegas Golden Knights, according to the Golden Knights’ VGK Ticket Exchange. Tickets run as high as $1,900.
The Knights enter the game at 24-9-2, while Minnesota is 22-11-2. Mark Stone is the VGK top scorer with 12 goals and 28 assists for 40 points.
Tonight is Hockey Fights Cancer at T-Mobile Arena. I saw fans outside the arena wearing the purple Golden Knights sweaters. The purple jerseys worn by the Golden Knights players during pregame warmups were auctioned off, with 3,950 fans in the venue, which is 22 percent fan attendance capacity.
The first voice you hear in this loud arena is that of Bruce Cusick, the public address announcer since Day 1 of Year 1. He’s a friendly fella, but he uses a regular voice when talking with fans, not his theatrical-style delivery. Here’s Cusick in action against Minnesota this week.
Marc-Andre Fleury led the Knights out for warmups and will be manning the goal for the home team tonight. He played miserably in a 4-2 loss to Los Angeles Wednesday.
Returning to the VGK lineup this evening are Patrick Brown, Nick Holden and Cody Glass. Chandler Stephenson is still out serving out his punishment for elbowing against the LA Kings earlier this week.
The Knights trail first-place Colorado by two points, with the Avalanche playing one more game.
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In the first 20 minutes, Fleury returned to form. He played rock solid in thwarting 12 Minnesota shots.
At the other end, Wild G Talbot also looked solid, making a spectacular leg save on Shea Theodore on a VGK 2-on-1.
The Golden Knights grabbed a 1-0 lead thanks to a backhand goal by Tomas Nosek thanks to bouncy end boards that allowed the puck to ricochet out and give Nosek a great look at an open Minnesota net.
After one period, VGK 1 Minnesota 0
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In period two, the action opened up as both teams had scoring chances.
But Fleury for Vegas and Talbot for Minnesota were rock solid.
The Wild has 19 shots on goal, while the Knights has 17.
After two periods, Golden Knights 1 Minnesota 0
“We had enough chances to extend the lead and put them in a hole where they’d have to change their game. We just didn’t do that,” VGK coach Pete DeBoer said.
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The third period didn’t go well for the Golden Knights.
Glass was called for tripping and Minnesota cashed in on the power play with a goal by Kirill Kaprizov, an outstanding rookie who took a gorgeous pass and steered the puck past Fleury thanks to a backdoor tap-in. Flower didn’t have a chance. It was Kaprizov’s 14th.
After the Wild knotted the score at one, the Wild’s Eriksson Ek gave Minnesota the lead with his 12th midway through the third period.
“We’ve had our looks, we’ve had our chances. It was 1-0 going into the third and we lost the game. We were right there,” VGK captain Mark Stone said.
Fleury was pulled with 1:59 to go in the third period for a sixth skater.
The Knights applied some pressure in the final two minutes, but could not register the equalizer.
Final: Minnesota 2 Vegas 1
NHL scores today:
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