The Vegas Golden Knights always get going when the dads are around.
Vegas scored three consecutive goals in a 3-2 victory against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on Wednesday.
The Golden Knights improved to 10-4-2 on the season and 10-0-1 on the Dad’s Trip.
“The dads, to start,” Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore said. “They always get the juices flowing, but we didn’t like our effort at home last game, and sometimes getting on the road and getting a good mentality like that is good. We have a lot of road games coming up this month, so we wanted to start with tonight and get off on the right foot.”
Here are some takeaways:
Golden Knights Blend Lines
Vegas started the game with Alexander Holtz next to Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev. After a nothing first period, Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy put his lines into a blender and moved up Pavel Dorofeyev to the top line.
“’Pav’ can complement any center now,” Cassidy said. “He’s finding his game in terms of where he needs to go. He can figure that out, and still make his plays off the rush.”
Forward Tomas Hertl also moved to the fourth line, joining forwards Nicolas Roy and Keegan Kolesar
“It was a little bit of Tomas out of the middle and onto the wing with heavier type of players that he’ll complement,” Cassidy said. “Not worry about defensive responsibilities as much.”
The Golden Knights got a jump from the line switching, which is why Cassidy does this from time to time.
Power Play Strikes Again
The Golden Knights scored on the power play for the fourth game in a row. Hertl scored on the man-advantage at 6:43 of the second period to give the Golden Knights a 2-1 lead.
Vegas has consistently relied on its power play to get timely goals and bring them back into games. The Golden Knights score 32.5 percent on the man advantage, which is third in the NHL. They were 20th in the 2023-24 season, scoring 20.2 percent of the time on the power play.
“I liked our special teams,” Cassidy said. “We outscored them 1-0 and that ends up being the difference in the game.”
Hill Bounces Back
Goalie Adin Hill had a good showing after being pulled early in Monday’s 5-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.
“He’s been a successful goalie in this league,” Cassidy said. “He’s still building his resume, if that makes sense. He’s not a goalie that’s been around forever, so I think it’s important for him to be able to put stuff behind him and pick up the team the next time he’s in there. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, it’s never easy to win in this league, so he did that. He gave us some good saves. That’s his job, and he did it very well tonight.”
Hill made 22 saves to earn his seventh win of the season.
“Felt good tonight, felt sharp,” Hill said. “They threw a lot of pucks at the net and kind of a lot of weird bounces and that but, no, felt like a solid game.”
Paul Delos Santos is the Las Vegas sports insider for Dice City Sports. Follow him on X at @PaulDelos_.
