Golden Knights at Blues
The Vegas Golden Knights continue to be the feel-good story of the 2017-18 season while rewriting the expansion team record books as they visit the St. Louis Blues on Thursday. Vegas has won eight straight and boasts a 13-game point streak (12-0-1) - NHL records for a first-year club - after Tuesday's 3-0 victory over Stanley Cup contender Nashville, and also own a four-game road winning streak.
"We just keep playing our game and have good success," Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant told reporters Tuesday after Vegas improved to an eye-popping 17-2-1 at home. "It's about competing and getting ready for the next game. If we keep playing the kind of hockey we're playing, we're going to win a lot of hockey games." The Golden Knights, who are 10-7-1 on the road, lead the Pacific Division with a Western Conference-most 56 points - four fewer than NHL-best Tampa Bay - while St. Louis sits second in the Central, one point behind Winnipeg. The Blues have righted the ship with two straight victories after a 2-7-0 stretch for their first back-to-back wins since Dec. 9-10. "We’ve got to build off it,” Blues coach Mike Yeo told reporters after Tuesday's 3-2 shootout victory over New Jersey. “We’ve said it before that we felt when things were not going well, we were sharpening up in our game and now we have to make sure we keep pushing it to another level.”
TV: 8 p.m. ET, AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain (Vegas), FS Midwest (St. Louis)
ABOUT THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS (27-9-2): Jonathan Marchessault (team-high 37 points), who signed a six-year, $30 million contract extension Wednesday, has scored in three straight contests and owns a seven-game point streak (five goals, six assists). Reilly Smith recorded his first goal in eight games Tuesday, giving Vegas five players with 10 or more goals. William Karlsson (club-best 20 goals) has five tallies in his last five contests, James Neal (17) has gone five games without scoring after recording one in three straight contests and Erik Haula, who played his 300th career game Tuesday, has 14.
ABOUT THE BLUES (25-15-2): Vladimir Tarasenko shares the team lead in goals with Brayden Schenn after scoring his 17th of the season Tuesday and second in the last three games. Schenn (club-most 41 points) has only two goals and two assists in 12 games since Jaden Schwartz was lost with an ankle injury, and scored once in the past 11 contests. Vladimir Sobotka registered his eighth goal of the season Tuesday and is one shy of matching his career high set in 2013-14.
OVERTIME
1. The Golden Knights are an NHL-best 17-1-0 when scoring first.
2. St. Louis is 0-for-15 on the power play over the last six games and 1-for-23 in the past eight while Vegas is 12-for-12 on the penalty kill over its last five contests.
3. The Golden Knights prevailed 3-2 on Karlsson's overtime goal in the first meeting Oct. 21 in Las Vegas.