The Vegas Golden Knights opened the 2022-2023 NHL season with a dramatic last minute victory over the Los Angeles Kings in L.A. last night. And, after Monday night’s heartbreaking loss by the Las Vegas Raiders, it was nice to see one of our hometown teams win a close one.
It sure didn’t look like opening night hockey as both teams came out playing an up tempo, exciting playoff style game. L.A. took the early lead with a goal in the first, but the Golden Knights tied it up in the second, as they took advantage of a bad line change by the Kings for a three-on-one opportunity. Jonathan Marchessault and William Karlsson made a couple of quick passes on the breakaway, and Marchessault wristed it into the net behind Los Angeles goaltender Jonathan Quick.
The teams went into the final period tied at 1-1, and then the floodgates opened in back-and-forth style. VGK goals in the third came from Jack Eichel cleaning up a rebound around the net, and William Karlsson with a nice redirect off of a shot-pass from defenseman Alex Pietrangelo. The Kings kept it close each time Vegas took a lead with goals by Adrian Kempe and Arthur Kaliyev.
It looked like the game was headed into overtime, when Kings defenseman Sean Durzi tried to make a long stretch pass out of his zone with a little over 30 seconds to go. It was broken up the the Golden Knights defense and Chandler Stephenson came away with the puck, sped in over the blue line and into the L.A. zone down the right side. He made a nice no-look backhand pass to captain Mark Stone, who lifted it over Quick’s shoulder for the dramatic game-winning goal with just 26 seconds left on the clock.
New head coach Bruce Cassidy begins his career with the Vegas Golden Knights with a victory. In the post-game interview, he mentioned that he was happy to see the resiliency of his new team in their first league game under his tutelage. He liked the way the players came back and played hard after something didn’t go their way or there was a goal against.
Vegas Golden Knights starting goaltender Logan Thompson acquitted himself well in his new position as the team’s #1 goalie, stopping 27 of 30 shots on net, to get the 4-3 win.
All-in-all, it was a great way to start a new season. Go Knights Go!!
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Larry Martino is the long-time Afternoon Drive personality on 96.3 KKLZ. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of Larry Martino and not necessarily those of Beasley Media Group, LLC.