Golden Knights Storm Back In Third Period With Three Straight Goals To Fizzle Stars, 5-4, After Lehner Was Pulled Wednesday
There’s an indoor mask mandate to lower the COVID rate in Clark County. Not everyone complies inside T-Mobile Arena. Owner Bill Foley and General Manager Kelly McCrimmon go mask-less in the suite.
Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
The horn sounded at 5:45 PM and the fans started making their way through the front doors of T-Mobile Arena, a short walk off the Vegas Strip. After 10 minutes or so, there weren’t lines of people outside the Vegas Golden Knights’ home venue.
As I gazed at the arena lobby and watched the fans moving on escalators to the main concourse, there was an observation: the electricity for tonight’s Dallas Stars vs Vegas Golden Knights game was nowhere near VGK home games from previous seasons.
I then took a look at the team’s official secondary market ticket website and you could have snagged a ticket for 19 bucks on the VGK Ticket Exchange, plus fees.
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The Golden Knights still enjoy routine sellouts, and they announce bigger attendance numbers than the number of fixed seats in the arena, 17,367. There’s plenty of room for hundreds of fans in the Hyde Lounge and more SRO space on the “flight deck” near the arena’s character stage, the “Fortress.”
As I write this, it’s six minutes into the Dallas-VGK game and I’m looking across the ice from the media ledge at section 5 behind the Golden Knights bench. There’s a row about a dozen rows off the ice that had hardly any fans.
And with five minutes left in a one-goal game in the third period, there were lots of empty seats among an announced attendance of 17,843.
They missed a helluva finish. The Knights stormed back from a 4-2 deficit in the third period with three straight VGK goals from Michael Amadio, Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty.
Final: Vegas 5 Dallas 4.
Tonight is Hispanic Heritage Night and it’s a financial opportunity for the Knights to make some money by selling special warmup jerseys via an online auction.
The franchise, now in its fifth season, will always have a special place in the emotional identity of this market after its miracle season and run to the Stanley Cup Finals.
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Dallas led the VGK, 1-0, after one period on a power play goal by 22-year-old Jason Robertson from Arcadia, CA. Dallas goalie Braden Holtby blocked all 10 VGK shots on goal.
It took a mere 19 seconds for the Knights to tie the score on a Stone goal in period two, but Dallas’s Tyler Seguin gave the Stars a 2-1 lead with a goal only three seconds into a power play.
VGK goalie Robin Lehner was benched with about 12 minutes left in period two after he surrendered the Stars’ third goal to Joe Pavelski. Lehner yielded three goals on 10 Dallas shots. Laurent Brossoit was put in to replace Lehner. Dallas was three-for-three on power play chances.
Jonathan Marchessault fired home his 11th goal of the season on a delayed penalty and the Knights trailed, 3-2, after two periods.
The Knights also had a commanding 32-12 edge in shots on goal, but trailed by a goal heading into the second intermission.
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Pavelski scored his second of the game and gave Dallas a 4-2 lead before fourth liner Amadio fired home a shot from the left side past Holtby and the Stars led, 4-3, midway through period three.
Stone and Pacioretty added their late game magic and the Knights came away with a 5-4 comeback win.
The Knights improve to 15-10, good for 30 points. They play Philly at the Big Ice House Friday.
