Alex Tuch had two goals and an assist and Shea Theodore also scored twice to lead the Vegas Golden Knights to a 6-4 victory over the St. Louis Blues in a round-robin game of the Stanley Cup Qualifiers on Thursday at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
Mark Stone scored what proved to be the game-winner with 7:29 left in the third period and Zach Whitecloud also scored for Vegas (2-0-0, 4 points) which will play Colorado (2-0-0, 4 points) for the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference on Saturday. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 13 of 17 shots.
Colton Parayko scored two goals and David Perron and Troy Brouwer also scored for St. Louis (0-2-0, 0 points), which faces Dallas (0-2-0, 0 points) for the third seed on Sunday. Ryan O'Reilly and Zach Sanford each added two assists. Jordan Binnington finished with 32 saves.
Perron gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at the 4:02 mark of the first period with his second goal of the playoffs, firing a wrist shot from the high slot through Fleury's pads.
The two teams each scored three times in a wild second period. Parayko, left wide open in front of the net, made it 2-0 with a wrist shot over Fleury's shoulder and inside the right post.
Vegas then stormed back to take a 3-2 lead with three goals in the span of 6:23. Theodore started the comeback with a power-play goal with a wrist shot from the top of the left circle that found its way under Binnington's glove. Tuch then tied it when he jammed in a rebound of a Nick Holden shot inside the left post and then gave the Golden Knights a 3-2 lead when he scored on a backhand shot in the slot 2 1/2 minute later.
The Blues answered with two goals in the span of 21 seconds to take a 4-3 lead. Parayko tied it when he circled the net and easily beat Fleury with a wraparound shot. Brouwer followed with a one-timer from the bottom of the left circle off a Tyler Bozak feed.
Whitecloud tied it again, 4-4, with the first goal of his NHL career early in the third period, one-timing a Nicolas Roy feed from the bottom of the right circle into the top far corner. Stone then redirected a crossing pass from Brayden McNabb to make it 5-4, and Theodore followed a little over two minutes later with his second goal of the game with a shot from the right point past Binnington's blocker side.
--Field Level Media
Vegas | St. Louis | |
Shea Theodore 2 | Points | Colton Parayko 2 |
Shea Theodore 2 | Goals | Colton Parayko 2 |
Nick Cousins 2 | Assists | Ryan O'Reilly 2 |
Shea Theodore 1 | Power Play Goals | N/A |
N/A | Short Handed Goals | N/A |
Marc-Andre Fleury .765 | Save Percentage | Jordan Binnington .842 |
Marc-Andre Fleury 13 | Saves | Jordan Binnington 32 |
Team | Shots | Goals | Power Play | Penalty Kill | Penalty Mins | Face Offs Won |
Vegas | 38 | 6 | 2-5 | 3-3 | 8 | 17 |
St. Louis | 17 | 4 | 0-3 | 3-5 | 12 | 39 |