The Pittsburgh Penguins effectively outshot the Golden Knights 37-to-26 making the Vegas Golden Knights lose their fifth of the last six home games.
The Knights started out strong with Chandler Stephenson scoring on a breakaway to put themselves on the scoreboard, assisted by Evgeni Dadonov and Shea Theodore to give Vegas a 1-0 lead.
The goal was scored only 3:43 into the first period, and was the first shot on the goal that Vegas had against Penguin goaltender Tristan Jarry.
The Knights continued to hold a strong offense with multiple scoring opportunities to boost the lead with a goal from Dadonov with assists coming from Mark Stone and Alex Pietrangelo.
The Knights knocked in a third goal from Nicolas Roy assisted by Pietrangelo and Johnathan Marchessault for a power-play goal with 29.5 seconds remaining in the period to extend their lead 3-0.
Robin Lehner made seven saves in the first period as the Vegas defense held the Penguins back.
The Penguins kicked off the second period on a high note, scoring their first goal of the night with an unassisted shot from Jason Zucker for a power-play goal to cut the Knight’s lead 3-1 just seven minutes into the period.
"I mean it’s what it is, I don’t think it was a goal,” says Golden Knights goalie Lehner. “It was kinda in my crease line and ended up in the net, that was not my doing and I know I couldn’t cover up the puck because they were slapping away at it, they shouldn’t be able to push me into the net so I thought it was goal interference.”
Despite Lehner’s confusion on the goal, DeBoer didn’t think there was conclusive evidence when he looked at the replay and was hesitant to challenge the call after the Knights had taken two early penalties.
Pittsburgh capitalized from the momentum of the goal to score once again 49 seconds later with Teddy Blueger slipping the puck past Lehner, assisted by Brian Boyle and Mike Matheson shortening the Knights lead to 3-2.
It didn’t take long for the Penguins to tie things up with Kasperi Kapanen driving the puck up the ice and Zucker shooting it into the net only 28 seconds into the third period. The goal not only brought the score to 3-3, but was Zucker’s second goal against his hometown team only a day after his 30th birthday.
Shortly after the goal, Jake Guentzel stole the lead for the Penguins with an unassisted goal of his own for 4-3.
Desperate to tie the game, Vegas pulled Lehner from the net to add an extra man to the offense in the final minutes of the game. Sidney Crosby stole the empty net advantage and scored the final goal of the night, assisted by Kris Letang and Jeff Carter to beat the Knights 5-3.
Pittsburgh scored five unanswered goals, making this the fourth time the Golden Knights have blown a 3-0 lead this year and the second time they lost after blowing a lead of that caliber.
"We had a slow start in the second, started turning the puck over,” says Knights’ center Stone. “Took two penalties, couldn’t really get it going.”
The second period really sparked the beginning of the end for the Knights with the first goal for the Penguins stunted the Knight’s momentum pretty heavily.
Up Next
The Vegas Golden Knights look to get to 50 points against the 7-25-5 Montreal Canadiens on Thursday, Jan. 20 at 7 p.m. at the T-Mobile Arena.
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