The Vegas Golden Knights have gone from looking over their shoulder to being right back in the thick of things.<\/p>\n
It took less than a week and one shocking coaching change for the Knights to claw back within one point of first place in the Pacific Division after a 5-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re consistently trying to play fast,\u201d coach John Tortorella said. \u201cCertainly playing north. We had a lot of good minutes tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knights (35-26-16) were six points back of first place and only four points clear of the Los Angeles Kings for third place when they fired Bruce Cassidy on <\/a>Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Six days and three straight wins later to start the Tortorella era, the Knights now sit one point back of the Oilers (39-29-9) and Anaheim Ducks, who are tied with 87 points, each with five games to go.<\/p>\n Anaheim lost 5-3 to the Calgary Flames on Saturday for its fifth straight loss.<\/p>\n The Knights put an end to the Oilers\u2019 five-game winning streak.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this one here, this game here, there\u2019s a little bit more juice coming into this game,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cThis is a good team. They\u2019ve been playing really well. We knew we had our hands full.\u201d<\/p>\n It needs to be noted that the Knights didn\u2019t play the Oilers at full strength. They were without top goal scorers Leon Draisaitl (lower body) and winger Zach Hyman (undisclosed).<\/p>\n But there\u2019s no sympathy in the Knights-Oilers rivalry.<\/p>\n The Knights needed this win, no matter who was on the other side, after losing the first three times to Edmonton this season \u2014 as recently as March 26 in the 4-3 overtime loss at T-Mobile <\/a>Arena<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Knights got out to a strong start at both ends \u2014 killing two Edmonton power plays in the first period and scoring the first goal, with Brett Howden putting home a rebound from Jack Eichel at 11:43.<\/p>\n It was the first time the Knights took a lead into the first intermission since March 14.<\/p>\n Goaltender Carter Hart got the start for the second straight game<\/a> since returning after a 33-game absence with a lower-body injury, and had his best outing since returning to the NHL with 31 saves.<\/p>\n Defenseman Jeremy Lauzon scored his first goal as a member of the Knights and added an assist, and Eichel finished with three assists.<\/p>\n Here are three takeaways from the win:<\/p>\n 1. Hart strong<\/p>\n The Sherwood Park, Alberta native felt at home on Saturday.<\/p>\n Hart put together his best outing with the Knights, given the opponent and the situation, in a time where the Knights have needed a goaltender to take the reins.<\/p>\n \u201cI just felt more in a rhythm tonight,\u201d Hart said. \u201cI felt a little looser. (The) boys did a great job in front of me and kept things to the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n Hart was also the Knights\u2019 best penalty killer on a night where the PK went 3-for-3. He saved his best for the third kill following Kaedan Korczak\u2019s tripping penalty at 1:51 of the third period.<\/p>\n The Oilers cut the Knights\u2019 lead to 3-1 following a goal from defenseman Evan Bouchard in the final minute of the second period.<\/p>\n Thirteen seconds after killing the Korczak penalty, captain Mark Stone tipped an Ivan Barbashev pass to restore the three-goal lead.<\/p>\n Hart was on the hook for three goals allowed Thursday against Calgary, but each came on 2-on-1 opportunities.<\/p>\n The Knights did a better job playing in front of him Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cHe just looked solid,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cI know nothing about goaltending, but you can tell when a goaltender feels big. He looked big to me. He just looked solid.\u201d<\/p>\n 2. Lauzon finally gets one<\/p>\n It took until Game 77 for the old-school defenseman to find the back of the net for the first time.<\/p>\n Lauzon scored his first goal since Feb. 22, 2024 when he was a member of the Nashville Predators after taking a drop pass from Eichel and sniping it blocker side.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a great moment,\u201d Lauzon said. \u201cI was waiting for it for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n Lauzon has been close all year. He had a goal overturned back in November because he was offside on the play. He\u2019s made an effort to take risks offensively since the Olympic break.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been an up-and-down year for Lauzon. It started with taking a penalty<\/a> almost every other game. He\u2019s since settled in.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were fired up,\u201d center Colton Sissons said. \u201cHe\u2019s been so good for us all year. He plays the game so hard and does so many little things for us.\u201d<\/p>\n 3. Taking care of business<\/p>\n Yes, this is a big win. The Knights controlled play the entire way to secure just their 13th wire-to-wire win of the year.<\/p>\n But they\u2019ve done their job against last-place Vancouver, middle-of-the-road Calgary and banged-up Edmonton. This is what this team should be doing.<\/p>\n They\u2019ll be tasked to do that again Tuesday against the Canucks. The expectation will be the same.<\/p>\n But the Knights are winning. This time of year, you take wins however you get them.<\/p>\n Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com.<\/a> Follow @DannyWebster21<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vegas Golden Knights have gone from looking over their shoulder to being right back in the thick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5129],"tags":[149,5317,5,4,74,39,5316],"class_list":{"0":"post-542037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vegas-golden-knights","8":"tag-golden-knights","9":"tag-goldenknights","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-vegas","13":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","14":"tag-vegasgoldenknights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116352229273663944","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542037","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=542037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}