LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 Brett Howden had never scored double-digit goals until this season. Then he went out and scored 23.<\/p>\n
Turns out, Howden isn\u2019t finished.<\/p>\n
He had what turned out to be the game-winning goal and later delivered an empty netter, and the Vegas Golden Knights opened their first-round Western Conference playoffs series with a 4-2 victory Sunday night over the Minnesota Wild.<\/p>\n
Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said he told Howden to stick with what he did in the regular season rather than try to do too much in the playoffs. Howden had just six career postseason goals before this game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t change his game,\u201d Cassidy said. \u201cHe played physical. He\u2019s part of our penalty kill. He\u2019s always out when the goalie\u2019s out, typically one of the six guys we use a lot because of his versatility. He can play wing. He can take draws as a center. He\u2019s been real good for us all year and good again tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tomas Hertl had a goal and an assist for the Golden Knights.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been long excited for this moment,\u201d Hertl said. \u201cI always try to play my game, and I think it\u2019s kind of playoff style. I\u2019m glad I could help the team today. It was a team effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pavel Dorofeyev scored the other Vegas goal, and Adin Hill made 18 saves.<\/p>\n
Matt Boldy scored both Wild goals, Kirill Kaprizov assisted on both and Filip Gustavsson stopped 23 shots.<\/p>\n
Game 2 is Tuesday night in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think both teams came to play hard,\u201d Wild coach John Hynes said. \u201cPretty strong defensive efforts. Not a lot of special teams in the game. I thought we did a lot of good things to build on moving forward.\u201d <\/p>\n
Both teams traded goals in the first period. Hertl took the puck from Minnesota\u2019s Brock Faber and hit the net from just inside the front side of the left circle. The Wild answered 2:20 later when Kaprizov delivered a cross-ice pass to Boldy, who scored off the rush.<\/p>\n
Dorofeyev scored the only goal in the second period when Hertl won the faceoff to open a power play. The puck went to Shea Theodore, who skated to the center and set up Dorofeyev for a blast from the right circle. Dorofeyev has scored goals in three consecutive games going back to the end of the regular season.<\/p>\n
Howden extended the Vegas lead to 3-1 early in the third period, but Boldy\u2019s wrap-around goal with 8:14 left brought Minnesota to within one. Howden added an empty-netter with less than 1 second remaining, the Golden Knights\u2019 second power-play goal.<\/p>\n
Wild 19-year-old defenseman Zeev Buium made his NHL debut by playing on the third pair with Zach Bogosian. He played 13:37 with a shot on goal. Buium was playing for Denver just 10 days earlier in the NCAA\u2019s Frozen Four.<\/p>\n
Linesman Bryan Pancich left the game<\/a> 3:37 into the second period after a collision with Howden. Backup official Frederick L\u2019Ecuyer took Pancich\u2019s place.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n AP NHL playoffs: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 Brett Howden had never scored double-digit goals until this season. Then he went out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[1042,1741,1502,762,16208,535,1938,5,1119,537,1326,8813,161,38,5280,1277,4,292,1274,2880,9,43,14,104,1261,39,162,3703,1289],"class_list":{"0":"post-120055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-adin-hill","9":"tag-brett-howden","10":"tag-brock-faber","11":"tag-bruce-cassidy","12":"tag-bryan-pancich","13":"tag-filip-gustavsson","14":"tag-frederick-lecuyer","15":"tag-hockey","16":"tag-john-hynes","17":"tag-kirill-kaprizov","18":"tag-las-vegas","19":"tag-matthew-boldy","20":"tag-minnesota","21":"tag-minnesota-wild","22":"tag-minnesotawild","23":"tag-mn-state-wire","24":"tag-nhl","25":"tag-nhl-hockey","26":"tag-nv-state-wire","27":"tag-pavel-dorofeyev","28":"tag-shea-theodore","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-stanley-cup","31":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","32":"tag-tomas-hertl","33":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","34":"tag-wild","35":"tag-zach-bogosian","36":"tag-zeev-buium"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114831663083993646","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}