Pietrangelo Goal In OT Gives Golden Knights 3-2 Win Over Minnesota As Fleury Notches 490th Career Win Wednesday
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By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Just the facts: Vegas Golden Knights 3 Minnesota Wild 2 overtime
OT game-winner: Alex Pietrangelo
NHL milestone: VGK goalie Marc-Andre Fleury notched his 490th career win, good for third all-time — “I don’t look at the list every night. I just try to win when I get the chance,” Fleury said.
Golden Knights record: 37-13-2 for 76 points, Minnesota is 33-14-5 for 71 points. “It was a hard-fought game and a real gutsy effort by our group,” VGK coach Peter DeBoer said. “We needed everyone to show up tonight.”
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On Monday, there were a lot of goals — five — in period one when the Vegas Golden Knights played the Minnesota Wild in St. Paul.
On Wednesday, there were fights and penalty minutes — 30 total penalty minutes — but no goals by the Knights and the Wild during the first disjointed 20 minutes.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if “chippy” wasn’t trending on Twitter during the first period because VGK defenseman mates Zach Whitecloud and Nic Hague were involved in separate scraps with Minnesota players, with the Golden Knights piling up 17 minutes in penalties to Minnesota’s 13.
And yes, there was a playoff-style atmosphere to the Vegas-Minnesota showdown. The Wild had won five straight games against the VGK, including the last four by a single goal in each of those games.
There was a NHL Fight Night feel, too, with the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals mixing it up Wednesday after the Tom Wilson cheap shot incident against the Rangers two days ago.
The city of Henderson, which is using public dollars to help build a new arena for the Henderson Silver Knights, was also involved in rooting on the Vegas Golden Knights.
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In the second period, the Golden Knights got on the scoreboard with a goal by Chandler Stephenson, his 13th goal of the season at 8:30 of the middle stanza.
After 40 minutes, the Golden Knights led, 1-0, in the physical game.
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The Knights were less than nine minutes away from a win when Kirill Kaprizov not only tied the score but gave the Wild a 2-1 lead with two goals at 11:13 and 13:23 — just two minutes and 10 seconds between goals.
But then the VGK made a push during a power play as forward Reilly Smith snapped a scoring slump with the tying goal with a mere second left on the power play at 15:44 of the third period.
It was a gutsy win. A couple of guys really stepped up and gave the team a momentum boost. — Reilly Smith
It was 2-2 in the latter stages of the game.
And the game went into overtime.
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VGK defenseman Pietrangelo scored his fifth goal of the season in OT at 1:53.
“This time of the year is probably my favorite time of the year. As you get up to the playoffs, everything gets more competitive,” Pietrangelo said after the game.
Fleury racked up his 490th win in 881 games. His friends in Pittsburgh also saluted Flower. See above.
Minnesota took the season series, 5-3, against VGK.
Scores from Wednesday:
PSA
