Shea Theodore scored the winner in the fourth round of the shootout and Jonathan Marchessault had two goals and an assist to lead the Vegas Golden Knights to a 4-3 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Friday night in Las Vegas.
It was the fifth career shootout winner for Theodore, who fired a backhand shot under the glove of New Jersey goaltender Akira Schmid for the only score of the shootout.
Adin Hill, playing in his 100th career NHL game, made a career-high 47 saves and stopped all four shootout attempts for the Golden Knights, who broke a tie for first place in the Pacific Division with the idle Los Angeles Kings.
It was the first three-point game of the season by Marchessault. Jack Eichel also had a goal and an assist and Ivan Barbashev added a pair of assists for Vegas, which improved to 8-1-2 over its last 11 games.
Dawson Mercer tied the franchise record with a goal in his eighth straight game and Jesper Bratt and Miles Wood also scored for New Jersey, which had a three-game win streak snapped. Schmid finished with 24 saves.
Vegas took a 1-0 lead at the 7:48 mark of the first period when Brayden McNabb’s slap shot from the left point caromed off the end boards right to Marchessault by the right side of the crease, where he fired a wrist shot while falling to the ice.
Bratt tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal, one-timing a crossing pass from Jack Hughes from the right circle through Hill’s pads.
The Devils took a 2-1 lead just before the end of the period on Mercer’s 21st goal of the season. McNabb lost the puck in his own zone above the circles, and Mercer scooped it up and then snapped a wrist shot over Hill’s blocker and off the far post for his franchise record-tying score.
Mercer joined Paul Gardner (1977-78), who scored in eight straight games with the Colorado Rockies, who later moved to New Jersey in 1982, and Valeri Zelepukin, whose run included the last six games of the 1992-93 season and the first two of the 1993-94 season.
Marchessault tied it 2-2 midway through the second period when he took a centering feed from the right boards by Barbashev and then fired a wrist shot into the top right corner. It was his 19th goal.
Eichel put the Golden Knights back in front, 3-2, at the 3:47 mark of the third period when he finished a 2-on-1 break with Marchessault with a wrist shot through Schmid’s pads for his team-leading 23rd goal and sixth in the last six games.
Vegas had a chance to extend the lead midway through the period when William Karlsson was slashed by Ondrej Palat on a shorthanded breakaway and awarded a penalty shot. But Schmid came up with a right shoulder save on Karlsson’s wrist shot from the slot.
New Jersey then tied it when Wood jammed in his own rebound for his 11th goal of the season.
–Field Level Media
