Golden Knights blank Flyers, 1-0

PHILADELPHIA » Marc-Andre Fleury put a stop to Vegas’ early sophomore slump.

Fleury keyed the Golden Knights’ far-fetched run to the Stanley Cup Final in their rookie season and then had a highlight-reel outing to silence a slow start to their second one.

Fleury turned away breakaways, made sliding stops and used great glovework to stop 26 shots to lead the Vegas Golden Knights to a 1-0 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday.

“Fleury was outstanding today and he was the difference in the hockey game,” coach Gerard Gallant said. But he almost needed overtime. Cody Eakin bailed out the Golden Knights with the winner with 1:25 left in the game. Eakin ended the scoreless tie with a sensational sequence for the goal. He made a dive for the puck to keep it away from Flyers center Sean Couturier in Philly’s end of the ice. Ryan Carpenter snared the puck and passed it back to Eakin, who fired it from the circle past Brian Elliott for the winner.

“It’s just one of those ones where a stick and a bounce, and we were in the right spot at the right time,” Eakin said.

Elliott was pulled to give the Flyers the man-advantage and they still couldn’t solve Fleury. Fleury made a diving stop across the crease with 30 seconds left to deny Flyers captain Claude Giroux the tying goal.

He beat the Flyers for the 29th time, got his 406th career win and 49th NHL shutout.

The Golden Knights had had hit the skids with a 1-4 start that included an opening-night home loss to the Flyers. But on the final game of a five-game road trip, Fleury carried Vegas to a needed win before it returns home next week to open a five-game homestand.

Fleury made 10 saves in the second period and all of them were worthy of retweets. He stuffed Scott Laughton on a short-handed breakaway that wiped out the center and sent him crashing into the boards. Laughton crashed back-first into the boards and was down on the ice for a few seconds, then went straight to the locker room. He didn’t return until the third .

Moments after that save, Giroux was alone on a breakaway, took a nifty skip over a Vegas blade and was also stopped by Fleury. Fleury lay on his right side and snared the puck with his glove a tick before it reached the crease.