JT Miller notched a goal and two assists as the Vancouver Canucks defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 5-1 on Saturday night.
Vancouver secured its second consecutive win on a three-game trip ending Sunday in San Jose. The Canucks have now won four of their last five games following a three-game losing streak.
Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson, Andrei Kuzmenko, and Bo Horvat also scored for the Canucks, while Spencer Martin made 26 saves.
Jonathan Marchessault scored the lone goal for the Golden Knights, with Logan Thompson stopping 31 shots.
After falling to Seattle on Friday, Vegas suffered its second loss in as many nights. Before Saturday, the Golden Knights had an 11-1-3 record against the Canucks, including a 5-4 victory in Vancouver on Nov. 21.
“We knew they played yesterday, and we knew they lost; we knew they were going to come out hard, so we needed to be ready from the start, and I think we did,” Pettersson said. “We played a good 60 minutes of hockey.”
In what was arguably their worst performance of the season, the Golden Knights struggled throughout the game. After starting the season with an NHL-best 13-2-0 record, Vegas has lost five of its last eight games, four of which came home.
Vancouver took a 2-0 lead in the first period with a pair of power-play goals: Boeser’s deflection in front of the net and Miller’s shot from the left circle.
The power-play success continued in the second period with Pettersson’s one-timer from the right dot, extending Vancouver’s lead to three goals.
The Canucks went 3 for 5 on the power play and have converted 19 times on 52 opportunities since Oct. 24, ranking first in the league with a 36.5% conversion rate in that span. Overall, Vancouver ranks second in power play at 29.3%.
“Special teams win us games,” Pettersson said. “We played good 5-on-5 today, but we got three today on the power play, which is huge. And they didn’t score on our PK, so special teams somewhat won us the game today.”
Vancouver added two even-strength goals later in the second period. Kuzmenko scored off a feed from Nils Aman, and Horvat made it 5-0 with a goal from Miller’s pass with just two seconds left in the period. The five-goal deficit led to boos from the announced crowd of 18,004 as the Golden Knights headed to intermission.
“The first seven, eight minutes, we were the better team,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We had some good looks. … In hindsight, when you’re playing your fifth game in eight days if one of those goes in, maybe it will give us some juice, and we’ll not be chasing it. Their goalie made big saves. Then we got ourselves in penalty trouble and didn’t get the job done.”
Marchessault scored late in the third period, ruining Martin’s bid for Vancouver’s first shutout of the season.
“It’s important not to go down early on the road,” Martin said. “They have a really awesome crowd here, so just to keep them quiet as long as we could, and from there, the guys took over.”
UP NEXT:
- Canucks: At San Jose on Sunday.
- Golden Knights: At Columbus on Monday night.