Devils demolish Golden Knights, 8-3
Blake Coleman scored two goals and Michael Grabner, Nico Hischier and Taylor Hall each had a goal and an assist to lead the New Jersey Devils to an 8-3 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Travis Zajac, Stefan Noesen and Kyle Palmieri also scored goals and Brian Gibbons added a pair of assists for New Jersey. Keith Kinkaid finished with 39 saves in winning for the eighth time in his past 10 starts.
Erik Haula scored two goals and Colin Miller had a goal and an assist for Pacific Division-leading Vegas, which had a three-game winning streak snapped and took its worst home loss of the season.
Marc-Andre Fleury, making his seventh straight start and coming off his 400th career victory on Monday night in Philadelphia, was yanked from a game for the first time this season after surrendering four goals on 11 shots. Maxime Lagace took over and wound up saving 13 of the 17 shots he faced.
New Jersey scored the first four goals of the game, the first time this season that Vegas had trailed by four goals on its home ice.
Coleman opened the scoring with a short-handed goal, the eighth tally of the season, at 6:23 of the opening period. He chopped at a pass from Gibbons on the left side of the net that went through Fleury's pads.
Hischier made it 2-0 when his pass for John Moore in the slot was deflected by Vegas winger Tomas Tatar over Fleury's left shoulder at 8:10 of the first.
New Jersey upped the lead to 4-0 with two goals in the span of 36 seconds early in the second period. Zajac scored on a wrist shot in the slot off a nice feed by Grabner, who garnered his first point as a Devil at 1:55. Then New Jersey scored on a breakaway by Noesen, who scooped up a bouncing puck that got past Golden Knights defenseman Deryk Engelland by the boards at center ice and sent a puck between the pads of Fleury.
Vegas coach Gerard Gallant then pulled Fleury after just 22:31 and put in Lagace, and the Golden Knights responded with goals by Haula and Miller to cut it to 4-2 after two periods.
However, Coleman, Grabner, Palmieri and Hall sealed the win with consecutive third-period goals before Haula ended the scoring with his second power-play goal of the game with 28 seconds remaining.
--Field Level Media
