Knights complete sweep of Kings
Caps edge Blue Jackets to reduce deficit
LOS ANGELES, April 18, (AP): The Golden Knights want a Stanley Cup title to conclude their already amazing inaugural season in the NHL.
Vegas is on its way, beating the Los Angeles Kings 1-0 on Tuesday night and becoming the first expansion team in league history to sweep its first playoff series.
“All season long, I didn’t know any records about expansion teams,” goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. “We just do what a regular team would, we just play the game and try to win. That’s it.”
Brayden McNabb scored against his former team in the second period and Fleury stopped 31 shots as the Knights finished off their fourth one-goal victory of the series. It was the goalie’s second shutout of the playoffs.
The Knights poured into the net to hug Fleury at the final horn. Vegas fans in the crowd chanted the goalie’s name in celebration.
The Knights became the second team to win their first four playoff games, joining the 1970 Pittsburgh Penguins. McNabb scored from the right circle, beating Jonathan Quick’s glove, at 4:04 of the second for his first career playoff goal. The Kings left the defenseman exposed in last year’s expansion draft and the Knights snapped him up. The Kings pulled Quick in the closing seconds, when Dustin Brown skated straight toward the net and just missed. Brown also hit the left post with 10 minutes to go in the third, typical of the close calls that failed to generate goals for the Kings in the series. They outshot the Knights 31-21 in the game.
“It was crazy in the final minute of the game. They were buzzing around,” Fleury said. “We had to keep pushing to the very end.”
Facing elimination, the Kings came out aggressively and outshot the Knights 14-8 in the opening period. Quick stopped two shots on goal during the only power play in the period when Adrian Kempe was sent off for hooking.
Quick made 20 saves and allowed seven goals in the series, but he and the Kings couldn’t duplicate the rally they pulled off in 2014. Los Angeles lost its first three games to the Sharks in the first round that year and went on to win the series and eventually the Stanley Cup.
Vegas, the third expansion team since 196869 to clinch a playoff berth, awaits the winner of the series between Anaheim and San Jose, which the Sharks lead 3-0.
The Kings managed just three goals in the series and lacked offensive punch from Kopitar (one goal) and wingers Brown and Tyler Toffoli (no goals).
Brown fired a team-high six shots in the game, while Toffoli had three and Brown two. Capitals 3, Blue Jackets 1, 2OT In Columbus, Ohio, Lars Eller scored 9 minutes into the second overtime and Washington beat Columbus to tighten up the first-round playoff series.
The Capitals won at Nationwide Arena after Columbus won the first two games — both in overtime — in Washington. It was the Capitals’ turn to prevail in OT, this time on the Blue Jackets’ home ice, to pull to 2-1 in the best-of-seven series.
On the winner, Eller tapped a rebound past Sergei Bobrovsky for his first goal in the playoff series.
Tom Wilson and John Carlson also scored, and Braden Holtby stopped 33 shots for the Capitals.
Jets 2, Wild 0 In St Paul, Miss, Mark Scheifele scored both goals for Winnipeg and Connor Hellebuyck made 30 saves for his seventh shutout this season, as the Jets took a 3-1 lead in the first-round playoff series.
Scheifele scored with 28 seconds left in the first period and tacked on an empty-netter with 11 seconds remaining, pushing the Wild to the brink of elimination.
Devan Dubnyk stopped 26 shots for the Wild, who played without star left wing Zach Parise because of a broken sternum suffered in Game 3. After a six-goal outburst in their last appearance, the Wild had trouble generating the same kind of relentless attack and simply couldn’t slide any pucks past Hellebuyck.