Golden Knights at Avalanche
The star representing the greatest season in NHL expansion team history has faded a bit as the Vegas Golden Knights begin a home-and-home series with the Colorado Avalanche in Denver on Saturday afternoon. Vegas is 6-5-1 in its last 12 games after Thursday's 2-1 overtime loss to San Jose but still boasts a seven-point lead over the second-place Sharks in the Pacific Division.
"It's impressive. It's a great season for our guys,'' the Golden Knights' James Neal told reporters Thursday after Vegas became the first expansion club in league history to accumulate 100 points. "Guys came together real quick. A great job so far, but we're not done yet." Vegas, which won the only previous meeting 7-0 in Nevada on Oct. 27, is likely to encounter an angry Colorado club that was blown out by fellow Western Conference playoff contender Los Angeles 7-1 on Thursday. The Avalanche, though, own one of the two wild-card spots in the West and are on pace to at least double the 48 points they totaled last season in a remarkable turnaround spearheaded by center Nathan MacKinnon, who owns a 14-game point streak. "We have eight games to go, and we know it's just going to get harder from here,'' Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog told reporters. "Nobody's going to hand you any points."
TV: 3 p.m. ET, Sportsnet One, Sportsnet East, Sportsnet Ontario, Sportsnet Pacific; AT&T SportsNet-Rocky Mountain (Vegas), Altitude (Colorado)
ABOUT THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS (47-21-6): William Karlsson (66 points) has only five of his team-high 39 goals in 11 March games, including three in a 4-0 victory over Calgary on March 18. David Perron (66 points) has been kept off the scoresheet for the last two contests after recording eight of his club-most 50 assists in the previous eight games. Marc-Andre Fleury, who missed 25 games earlier this season with a concussion, sat out Thursday's game after taking a shot off the mask in Tuesday's 4-1 victory over Vancouver, but will rejoin the team in Colorado.
ABOUT THE AVALANCHE (40-26-8): MacKinnon (38 goals, 92 points) trails Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov by three points for the league lead after recording 13 goals and 14 assists during his point streak. Fellow linemate Mikko Rantanen (27 goals, 80 points) continued his breakout season with a goal Thursday, giving him five scores and 11 assists during an eight-game point streak. Semyon Varlamov is expected to appear in his 20th straight game and start for the 17th time in the last 18 contests after allowing five goals on 20 shots versus Los Angeles and getting relieved by Jonathan Bernier.
OVERTIME
1. Vegas LW James Neal (24 goals, 41 points) has recorded one assist in four games since missing eight with a hand injury.
2. Colorado C Carl Soderberg (15 goals, 34 points) has missed the last two games because of illness.
3. The Golden Knights, who host the Avalanche on Monday, are 12-for-12 on the penalty kill over their last four games while Colorado has allowed a power-play goal in each of the past two contests after killing 16-of-16 penalties in its previous five.