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Shop at Jay’s Market at 190 East Flamingo Road at the Koval Lane intersection east of the Strip.
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Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — They came in their royal blue jerseys by the dozens, Toronto Maple Leafs fans flowing through the concourses and up the escalators at T-Mobile Arena Wednesday.
The Vegas Golden Knights are Las Vegas’ organically homegrown team. But occasionally a strong dose of Raidersitis — lots of out of town fans visiting the home venue — inflicts the host club.
We saw this bigtime in Year 1 in 2017-18 when Golden Knights team president Kerry Bubolz said happily that the VGK franchise was glad to sell tickets to fans of visiting NHL teams and take their two points, too.
That’s Las Vegas for you, a one-trick pony, tourism-based economy that relies so much on visitors’ money and the business edicts of not locals but of the big corporate powers of the Strip like MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Las Vegas.
It bleeds into the burgeoning major league sports scene here. It was on our mind this week as the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board Thursday takes up business around the A’s stadium planned for a Vegas debut in 2028. The meeting agenda includes this gem, clearly showing that the majority of attendees at the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium are out-of-towners.
Wednesday’s VGK game crowd was a massive collection of festive fans. An eyeball guess would say about 18,200, but we were fooled. Vegas announced attendance at 17,769.
The Knights ambushed the Leafs with three goals on seven shots in period one, knocking out Toronto netminder Joseph Woll after goals by Tomas Hertl (24th), Brett Howden (17th) and Jack Eichel (20th).
The Vegas goalie, Adin Hill, was superb, stopping all 16 Maple Leafs shots during the first 20 minutes. He was coming off a nice performance of shutting out New Jersey Sunday.
The VGK took the 3-0 lead into the first permission.
Woll was out and Anthony Stolarz was in.
An interesting change in the VGK lineup was Tanner Pearson playing on the first line with Mark Stone and Eichel.
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The Knights kept piling up the score in period two.
Seventeen seconds into the middle stanza, Noah Hanifin scored for a 4-0 VGK lead.
Then Pearson scored and the Knights led, 5-0, in the second period.
Toronto’s star, Auston Matthews, put the Leafs on the board before the period ended.
And Mitchell Marner added a garbage time goal in the third before the Knights skated off the ice with a 5-2 win.
The Knights (37-18-6) have 80 points and lead the Pacific Division. It was the third win in a row for the VGK, and six Ws out of seven games.
Vegas plays Pittsburgh Friday.