The Vegas Golden Knights will try to win their third straight game to start the season for the third consecutive year when they host the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday night.
The Golden Knights recorded an 8-4 victory over the Colorado Avalanche in their season opener on Wednesday and added a 4-3 triumph versus the St. Louis Blues on Friday.
“It’s been good,” Vegas center Jack Eichel said of the hot start. “We want to continue to get better.”
The Golden Knights allowed the first goal in both games this season before answering with one of their own in short order. They owned the lead for good by the end of the first period in both games.
Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy particularly has been pleased with how his players have held their ground in the third period.
“That’s a real positive this time of the year,” he said. “That’s two leads we’ve had in the third period and, in both games, we’ve closed them out.”
One of the highlights so far has been the play of Shea Theodore, who has a goal and four assists and has teamed with fellow defenseman Alex Pietrangelo to lock down the back end.
“They’ve done a good job below the goal line killing plays together,” Cassidy said of Theodore and Pietrangelo. “They’ve been in sync.”
The Golden Knights plan to start Ilya Samsonov in goal after Adin Hill played the first two games.
Samsonov signed a one-year contract with the Golden Knights on July 1 after spending the past two seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The 22nd overall pick in the 2015 NHL Draft, Samsonov is 102-39-21 with a .904 save percentage and 2.76 goals-against average in five seasons with the Washington Capitals and Maple Leafs.
Against the Ducks, he’s 2-0-0 record 1.44 GAA and a save percentage of .952.
“We want to get both goalies involved, so that was the plan all along,” Cassidy said. “Adin would play two of the first three, and it happened to be the first two. So Sammy is going in, and you’ll see him back in there next week, too.”
The Ducks were the final NHL team to open their season and they were successful on Saturday night. Anaheim posted a 2-0 win over the San Jose Sharks behind 30 saves from Lukas Dostal and third-period goals from Isac Lundestrom and Trevor Zegras.
Anaheim killed all three power plays it faced, something the Ducks struggled with last season while finishing second-to-last in the NHL (72.4 percent).
“We have a little different things going this year if you compare it to last year with the penalty killing, so it worked pretty good (Saturday) night,” Lundestrom said. “We’ve just got to keep killing every game like this.”
Anaheim will look for better results from its power play, however. The Ducks went 0-for-5 with the man-advantage.
Ducks coach Greg Cronin told reporters before the game that he was unsure if Dostal would start back-to-back games against San Jose and Vegas. His other option would be James Reimer, acquired off waivers from the Buffalo Sabres on Monday.
Cronin made a good decision by keeping Zegras on the ice in the closing minutes on Saturday night, when the Ducks were clinging to a one-goal lead and San Jose had pulled its goalie for the extra attacker.
Zegras, who has been considered a defensive liability at times in his career, lofted the puck from near his own goal line and into the empty net to give Anaheim a two-goal cushion.
–Field Level Media