By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Well, times being what they are in the National Hockey League, Marc-Andre Fleury is already one team removed from his storied career at the Vegas Golden Knights.
So when the Chicago Blackhawks came to T-Mobile Arena this morning for a noon game, Fleury was nowhere to be seen.
He’s scheduled to start for his new team — the Minnesota Wild, the team that one of his former teams, namely the Knights, defeated in the first round of the playoffs last season.
They say it’s just business. And even without Fleury, the Chicago Blackhawks are still a nice draw for this arena, where the Blackhawks sweater was seen on hundreds of Chicago fans.
It’s a national TV game on a big day for college basketball as two Elite Eight matchups are also being broadcast Saturday.
Here in Las Vegas at the arena, VGK fans welcomed back defenseman Alec Martinez, who suffered a face injury when a skate caught him in the face months ago. And fellow defenseman Zach Whitecloud was out in warmups, too.
ADD: After the Golden Knights’ 5-4 comeback overtime win today, Martinez talked with the media about returning to play, It was evident by his body language and the manner in which he chose his words that simply playing was an emotional experience after recovering from an injury where he took a skate to the face.
Martinez thanked everyone, from the team’s medical staff and the players to his family, for helping him return to NHL action after four and a half months.
Chicago has already been here. On Jan. 8, Fleury backstopped a 2-1 win on a Saturday.
Las Vegas is one of the smaller markets in the major leagues, but tickets cost a lot here for major league sports. Even on the VGK ticket exchange website, the cheapest ticket was $45, plus fees, at 12 noon today. Then nine minutes later at 12:09 PM, the price was down to $25.
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An important cog for the Knights returned today — Martinez. He was paired with Zach Whitecloud on the blueline. And back in goal for the VGK is Logan Thompson, backed by Jiri Patera. Robin Lehner is still out.
Midway through the opening period, there was no score.
That was before Chicago’s Dominik Kubalik scored on Thompson and the Blackhawks led, 1-0, 10:02 into the game. It was Kubalik’s 12th of the season.
After one period, Chicago 1 Vegas 0.
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The middle period is typically a Chicago weak part of the game, as its goal differential in the middle stanza is the third worst in the NHL.
But the Blackhawks notched the first goal of the period by tapping in a back-door pass with about five minutes left in the second period. The Blackhawks opened up a 2-0 lead.
And then Dylan Strome fired home a rebound and Chicago extended its led to 3-0 with less than two minutes to go in the second period.
The Knights will have one period to get back into the game. After two periods, Chicago 3 Vegas 0.
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And it took less than three minutes for the Knights to get back into the hunt. First, Chandler Stephenson, playing on a line with Jack Eichel and Evgenii Dadonov, fired home a wrister while skating down the right side and beat Blackhawks goalie Kevin Lankinen.
Score: Chicago 3 Vegas 1
Then about a minute later, MIA William Karlsson tipped home a shot by defenseman Dylan Coghlan.
Score: Chicago 3 Vegas 2
And less than a minute after that, Jack Eichel took a pass from Chandler Stephenson and deked Lankinen and deposited the puck into the net for seventh goal of the season.
Score: Chicago: 3 Vegas 3.
Hold on. Chicago’s Alex Debrincat fired home a shot that beat Thompson to the upper short side and the Blackhawks took a 4-3 lead.
The one-goal advantage lasted a total of 47 seconds when Alex Pietrangelo scored on a long wrist shot and the Knights and Hawks were tied again, this time at four.
It looked like the Golden Knights woke up at 2 PM for a 12 noon game.
Just in case you’re out of breath, here’s a third period scoring summary so far:
The game went into overtime, tied at four apiece.
And who scored the winning OT goal for the Golden Knights?
It was Evgenii Dadonov, naturally, the man who endured a trade to Anaheim that was invalidated by the NHL only two days ago. His snap wrist shot a little more than two minutes into overtime ended the remarkable comeback with the Knights coming away with two points in the standings.
VGK coach Pete DeBoer was asked what he said in between periods two and three to get the Knights on the comeback trail and he joked, we think, that he “blacked out” after the win and didn’t remember.
Final: Vegas 5 Chicago 4 before 18,301 as the announced attendance.
PSA