Jonathan Marchessault scored his second career hat trick and Marc-Andre Fleury had 34 saves and also garnered his 17th career assist to lead the Vegas Golden Knights to a 7-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
Fleury picked up his league-leading 27th victory.
William Karlsson and Max Pacioretty each added a goal and an assist, and Oscar Lindberg and Shea Theodore also scored goals for Vegas. Paul Stastny and Colin Miller both finished with two assists.
Phil Kessel, who scored the game-winning goal in overtime on Friday night at Arizona, Sidney Crosby and Dominik Simon scored goals for Pittsburgh while Jake Guentzel finished with two assists. Casey DeSmith finished with 28 saves for the Penguins, who went 2-3 on their five-game, 12-day western road trip before heading into the All-Star break.
Vegas took a 3-1 lead in the first period and it could have easily have been 6-1 if not for the play of DeSmith, who stopped three breakaways in the period, including two by Alex Tuch and another by Karlsson.
Kessel started the scoring when he knocked in a crossing pass by Olli Maatta for his 20th goal of the season, his 11th straight season that he hit the 20-goal mark.
Theodore tied it with a power play goal a little over two minutes later, just the second power play goal in their last 31 attempts for Vegas. Pacioretty and Lindberg then scored 43 seconds apart later in the period.
Pittsburgh opened the second period with two goals in less than six minutes to tie it, 3-3. Simon got the first one into a wide open left side of the net off a pass from Guentzel and Crosby, then fired in a shot into the right corner of the net off a Guentzel backhand pass from behind the goal.
The Penguins briefly took a 4-3 lead on a power play goal by Evgeni Malkin but the goal was disallowed following a video replay when it was ruled Malkin used his skate to direct the puck into the goal.
Marchessault then scored two goals less than four minutes apart, the first on a wrist shot from the left circle after intercepting a DeSmith clearing pass near the boards, and the second when he picked up a loose puck in front of the net and fired a shot that barely got over the line near the right post.
Karlsson upped the lead to 6-3 with a goal at the 13:45 mark of the third period. Marchessault then added an empty-netter that Fleury and Pacioretty both were credited with assists on to complete the hat trick with 21 seconds remaining.
--Field Level Media
Pittsburgh | Vegas | |
Jake Guentzel 2 | Points | Jonathan Marchessault 3 |
Sidney Crosby 1 | Goals | Jonathan Marchessault 3 |
Jake Guentzel 2 | Assists | Colin Miller 2 |
N/A | Power Play Goals | Shea Theodore 1 |
N/A | Short Handed Goals | N/A |
Casey DeSmith .824 | Save Percentage | Marc-Andre Fleury .919 |
Casey DeSmith 28 | Saves | Marc-Andre Fleury 34 |
Team | Shots | Goals | Power Play | Penalty Kill | Penalty Mins | Face Offs Won |
Pittsburgh | 37 | 3 | 0-2 | 1-2 | 4 | 35 |
Vegas | 35 | 7 | 1-2 | 2-2 | 4 | 32 |