Pavel Dorofeyev scored a hat trick to lead the Vegas Golden Knights to a 5-1 victory over the slumping Boston Bruins on Thursday night in Las Vegas.
It was the second hat trick of Dorofeyev’s career. Brett Howden and Ivan Barbashev also scored goals and Jack Eichel, Brandon Saad and Noah Hanifin each added two assists for Vegas (40-20-8, 88 points), which snapped a two-game losing streak.
Adin Hill made 18 saves for the Golden Knights, who expanded their Pacific Division lead to three points over Edmonton.
Morgan Geekie scored a goal and Jeremy Swayman finished with 27 saves for Boston (30-31-9, 69 points), which dropped its fourth straight game and lost for the seventh time in nine games.
Vegas took a 1-0 lead midway through the opening period on Dorofeyev’s 12th power-play goal of the season, which tied a franchise record.
Eichel picked up the primary assist on the play, his 60th helper of the season, with a pass to a wide-open Dorofeyev in the left circle. Dorofeyev then whipped a wrist shot into the near top corner past Swayman’s blocker side.
The Golden Knights, who outshot the Bruins 8-1 over the final 18:50 of the period, made it 2-0 at the 19:10 mark on a spinning wrist shot from the high slot by Dorofeyev past Swayman’s blocker side.
Howden extended the lead to 3-0 early in the third period when Howden finished an odd-man rush by roofing a wrist shot from the left circle past Swayman’s blocker side.
Dorofeyev then completed the hat trick midway through the period with his career-high 30th goal of the season, backhanding in a rebound of a Saad shot in front of the net.
Barbashev made it 5-0 with 5:36 to go when he buried a backhand pass from Eichel past Swayman’s glove side.
Geekie broke up Hill’s bid for his fifth shutout of the season when he slapped in David Pastrnak’s crossing pass with 2:11 remaining.
–Field Level Media
