Knights rout Lightning in match-up of conference leaders, Flyers rally for OT victory
>> TAMPA: Marc-Andre Fleury made 28 saves, David Perron had a goal and an assist, and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 on Thursday night in a match-up of conference leaders.
James Neal, Nate Schmidt and William Karlsson also scored for the Golden Knights, who swept the twogame season series with the NHLleading Lightning.
Tampa Bay, coming off their bye week, got a goal from Ondrej Palat, and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 26 shots. Vasilevskiy, an All-Star this season, has allowed 19 goals over his last four games.
Fleury made a number of impressive stops, including a left-circle shot by Steven Stamkos and in-close chance from Nikita Kucherov during the second period. The goalie, who spent most of career with Pittsburgh, is 19-11-4 against the Lightning.
Neal opened the scoring with a nifty deflection 56 seconds into the first, and Schmidt made it 2-0 with 3:57 minutes left in the period. Deryk Engelland got his 100th NHL assist on Neal’s goal.
In Philadelphia, Sean Couturier scored 18 seconds into overtime and Philadelphia rallied for the 3-2 win after retiring the No.88 jersey of Hall of Fame centre Eric Lindros.
Couturier took a feed from Travis Konecny and beat Frederik Andersen with a wrist shot to give the Flyers their fifth win in six games.
Nolan Patrick and Wayne Simmonds scored early in the third period for the Flyers. Michal Neuvirth stopped 29 shots, including a sprawling pad save on Patrick Marleau with 2:48 minutes left in regulation.
Fourth-liners Connor Brown and Frederik Gauthier scored 28 seconds apart in the second period for Toronto in their season-high fourth straight loss. Andersen made 34 saves.
Back on good terms with the organisation after an ugly 2001 departure, Lindros received several standing ovations before his number was hoisted to the rafters in a ceremony that delayed the start by an hour.
In Denver, Nathan MacKinnon scored twice during a 58-second span in the first period, Matt Nieto added a late insurance goal and Colorado beat San Jose 5-3 to extend their winning streak to eight games.
Carl Soderberg also scored for the Avalanche, who have won eight in a row for the first time since the 200506 season.