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Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
Bruce the veteran beer guy at the top of the main concourse escalator tried his best to pitch his cans of foamy suds.
“Golden Knights beer,!” Bruce bellowed.
“Capitals beer!”
“Whaler beer!”
No buyers.
He then confided to a visitor before the Vegas Golden Knights-Washington Capitals game at T-Mobile Arena, “This crowd is dead.”
Well, things picked up later in the evening.
The Golden Knights entered the game on a three-game losing skid, never holding a lead in all three losses to Edmonton, Dallas and Detroit at home. But Knights fans welcomed a VGK 6-2 win over Washington Saturday, capping the seven-game homestand with a W.
The Washington Capitals played without their longtime superstar, Alex Ovechkin.
Alec Martinez scored his first goal of the season and then Nic Roy converted a pass from Jonathan Marchessault on a 2-on-1 and the Knights led, 2-0, in the first period.
In the second period, Michael Amadio notched his seventh of the season, while Byron Froese scored his first of the season for a 4-0 Knights lead.
And welcome back to the score sheet Paul “Welcome Back” Cotter, who scored his seventh goal later in the middle stanza. He scored on the Capitals’ second goalie of the night, Charlie Lindgren, after Vegas’ fourth goal knocked out Darcy Kuemper.
After the game at his locker, Cotter discussed the topic of the Knights scoring the first goal and then the goal “snowballing.”:
Washington made the score sheet with about two minutes left in the period when veteran T.J. Oshie scored his tenth to make it a 5-1 game.
Welcome Back Cotter shoveled in a second backhander for a goal to make it, 6-1, before Washington’s Marcus Johansson scored on VGK goalie Logan Thompson.
Final: Vegas 6 Washington 2.
At his locker after the game, goalie Thompson called the VGK win a “confidence boost.”
The Knights it the road immediately for a game against the Arizona Coyotes Sunday.