Marchessault leads Golden Knights past Panthers
LAS VEGAS -- Jonathan Marchessault had a goal and two assists, and Erik Haula scored the game-winner with 8:20 remaining as the Vegas Golden Knights moved back into a tie for first place in the Pacific Division with a 5-2 victory over the Florida Panthers on Sunday night at T-Mobile Arena.
Nate Schmidt, Colin Miller and James Neal also had goals for Vegas, which improved to 13-2-1 at home this season. The Golden Knights, New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning share the NHL lead with 13 home wins.
Malcolm Subban stopped 16 shots for the Golden Knights (21-9-2), who joined the Los Angeles Kings (20-10-4) atop the Pacific Division standings.
James Reimer made 35 saves and Radim Vrbata and Mike Matheson each had goals for Florida (12-16-5). The Panthers have won just two of their past nine games.
Florida jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first 5:13 on almost identical goals by Vrbata (on the power play) and Matheson. Both fired in cross-ice passes from the left circle over Subban's glove hand. Vrbata got a nice feed from Denis Malgin, while a trailing Matheson converted a feed from Evgenii Dadonov.
Vegas cut it to 2-1 at 6:39 of the first period when Schmidt scored his second goal of the season, slapping in a shot from about 10 feet to the right of the net. Miller tied it at 17:20 of the opening period, blasting a pass from Marchessault from just inside the blue line directly in front of Reimer.
Vegas finally took its first lead, 3-2, when an unguarded Haula, standing to the left of the next, redirected a shot from a spinning Marchessault near the blue line.
Marchessault then sealed the victory for Vegas with an empty-netter with 2:10 remaining, his 11th goal of the season. Neal added another empty-netter, his 16th of the season, on a long clearance from just to the side of Subban with 28 seconds left.
NOTES: Vegas G Malcolm Subban was making his first start Dec. 8 at Nashville, a game in which he had a career-high 41 saves and stopped all six shootout attempts in a 2-1 win over the Predators. ... Florida announced before the game that the club loaned F Dryden Hunt to its AHL affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds. Hunt had one assist in 11 appearances with Florida. ... Golden Knights D Deryk Engelland played in his 500th NHL game. ... The Panthers scratched C Connor Brickley and D MacKenzie Weegar while Vegas scratched C Ryan Carpenter, D Luca Sbisa and D Brad Hunt.