RALEIGH, NC—The Vegas Golden Knights certainly knew how to celebrate superstar Jack Eichel’s 29th birthday in style.
On Tuesday, the Golden Knights were successful in securing a .500 road trip, defeating the Carolina Hurricanes 6-3.
The game started with a familiar refrain during this trip to the east coast: a self-inflicted wound leading to an opponent goal. After a penalty on defenseman Jeremy Lauzon, Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov took advantage of a broken play. Using a blocking Mitch Marner as a screen, Svechnikov was able to fire the puck past Akira Schmid and put Carolina on the board first a little under four minutes into the game
Fortunately, some of the usual suspects for Vegas finally got back to their scoring ways almost three minutes later. Winning a puck battle behind the net, Tomas Hertl was able to move the puck towards Marner. Marner would then find the stick of Pavel Dorofeyev, who was able to get enough lift on a backhand shot to go over Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen. Dorofeyev tied the game at one, as well as tie for the league lead with his eighth of the season.
Soon, Dorofeyev would take sole possession of first in the goal-scoring race. On a power play to close out the first period, Dorofeyev ripped a one-timer past Andersen for his second goal of the game.
The goal was the only power play Vegas scored on the road trip, giving the man advantage some needed momentum.
Vegas had their chances in the second period and early in the third, but they fell behind the Hurricanes again on the back of goals from Jordan Martinook and Logan Stankoven, as well as tremendous play from Andersen.
Needing a spark, the Golden Knights found it from an unexpected source. With just over six minutes played in the third period, Brett Howden and Cole Reinhardt found themselves on the rush. Reinhardt, who came in to the lineup due to an injury to Colton Sissons, passed it over to Howden, who used some nifty stick handling in front of the net to push the puck past Andersen and tie the game at three.
From that point on, the Eichel show began to take shape. It began with just under five minutes remaining in regulation, when Ivan Barbashev found a streaking Eichel past the defense, giving the NHL’s leading point-getter a clean shot to give the Golden Knights the lead. Barbashev would find Eichel again two and a half minutes later for a one-timer that gave the Golden Knoghts a two-goal cushion.
Hertl would finish the job with an empty net goal to wrap up the victory for the road team.
Schmid was serviceable in net, stopping 21 of 24 shots and getting a few timely sequences to keep the game from getting out of hand.
The Golden Knights now head home to Vegas and will stay there for a while with a six-game homestand, starting with a Nevada Day afternoon matinee against the Colorado Avalanche on Oct. 31.