Mark Stone scored with 25 seconds left in regulation time as the Vegas Golden Knights stunned the home Los Angeles Kings 4-3 Tuesday night at crypto.com Arena.
Yes, that's actually their sponsorship deal. I know. It's ridiculous.
It was a bit of a dream start to head coach Bruce Cassidy's tenure as Vegas bench leader after his firing from the Boston Bruins last season, a team he had coached since 2016. It was also a spoiler for the LA home crowd, because no one wants to see their team lose their home opener under such circumstances. At least it wasn't a playoff game with one team on the brink of elimination (insert Blues fan here)
Gabriel Vilardi opened the scoring for Los Angeles a bit past midway of the first period, at 10:36, being assisted by Quinton Byfield and Alex Iafallo. It would be the only goal put past Jonathan Quick and Logan Thompson for LA and Vegas, respectively. The 2nd period also featured only 1 goal by either side, as Vegas' Jonathan Marchessault scored 1:41 into the medium frame to tie the game at 1. Heading to the 3rd period, Vegas again scored quickly into the frame, this time from Jack Eichel at 1:27. A couple of minutes later at 4:02, LA would tie things at 2 courtesy of Adrian Kempe. But just another couple of minutes after that, Vegas would retake the lead off a goal by William Karlsson on the power play at 7:17. LA's next and final tally of the night would come from Arthur Kaliyev at 12:58. From there, it seemed like 3-on-3 overtime would be necessary to determine a winner. But as you saw at the beginning, Mark Stone had other ideas.
Vegas outshot the Kings considerably with a 51-30 advantage while also edging them in faceoff wins (30-29) and hits (25-23). LA countered with 4 more penalty minutes than the Knights, holding a 12-8 lead in that statistic. Normally, that's one you don't want to lead the game in, but who cares?
Vegas's next outing is a late Thursday night meeting with the Chicago Blackhawks back at T-Mobile Arena in Sin City at 10 PM ET. (Curse you, Pacific Time). Los Angeles, on the other hand, stays at home to face the NHL's newest team, the Seattle Kraken at an even later start, with puck drop scheduled for 10:30 PM ET. Yeesh. Who outside of PT is gonna have time to watch that?
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