Vegas evens series behind Marchessault
Jonathan Marchessault scored twice and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 30 shots, lifting Vegas Golden Knights to a 3-1 series-evening win over the Winnipeg Jets on Monday night in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals.
“Every time we need a big game as a group, we show up,” Marchessault said. “Maybe we showed the hockey world we deserve to be here.”
Kyle Connor scored midway through the third period to pull host Winnipeg within a goal. Marchessault restored the twogoal lead 1:28 later.
Tomas Tatar scored 6:37 into the game for the Golden Knights.
Connor Hellebuyck had 25 saves for the Jets.
Game 3 is Wednesday night in Las Vegas.
The expansion Golden Knights appeared to be rusty in the series opener, and the Jets scored three goals early in a 4-2 win.
It looked Monday like they were going to pick up where they left off, but Fleury made key saves early and got help from a teammate and a post in the opening minutes to keep the puck out of his net.
“They came out flying again with a lot of speed,” Fleury said.
Vegas generated offense by making plays without the puck, forcing turnovers to set up goals.
After the Jets failed to clear the puck out of a corner in their end, Tatar ended up stuffing the puck in the net after hitting the side of the net with a shot.
Connor was pressured into turning over the puck near center ice late in the opening period and Reilly Smith set up Marchessault, his former Florida Panthers teammate, at the blue line and he scored on a breakaway backhander.
“There was about 57 minutes of that game that was pretty good for us,” Jets captain Blake Wheeler said. “Three minutes of it got away from us.”
The Jets closed the scoreless second period and started the third on the power play and still couldn’t get the puck past Fleury.
Yet.
Winnipeg kept the pressure on by relentlessly forechecking and drew another penalty early in the third. Connor took advantage, squeezing a shot between Fleury and the post from the bottom of the left circle 7:17 into the third.
That whipped the white-clad fans into a frenzy, triggering jeers of “Fleu-ry! Fleu-ry!” only to be quieted by another Marchessault backhander that beat Hellebuyck.
Uphill battle for Lightning: Jon Cooper walked into the locker room and didn’t get the sense Lightning players were down in the dumps about losing the first two games of the Eastern Conference finals.
“It was more kind of like an anger of like we want to get back — like let’s get Game 3 going here,” Tampa Bay’s coach said.
Game 3 on Tuesday night in Washington can’t come soon enough for the Lightning, who are in a historically difficult spot after losing twice at home to open the series.
Of the 41 previous times a team lost the first two games in the conference finals, 39 went on to lose the series — including every team that lost its first two at home.