The Vegas Golden Knights players celebrate after Erik Haula scored the winner in double overtime. (Photo: Stephen R. Sylvanie, USA TODAY Sports)
The Vegas Golden Knights have added another first to their remarkable inaugural season.
The Golden Knights won the first overtime playoff game in team history as Erik Haula lifted them to a 2-1 double-overtime win over the Los Angeles Kings at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
With the victory, the Golden Knights take a 2-0 series lead to Los Angeles.
The Kings were playing this game without star defenseman Drew Doughty, who was suspended for his Game 1 hit to the head of William Carrier.
After Vegas' Alex Tuch scored a power-play goal in the first period, defenseman Paul LaDue got the Kings on the board for the first time this series with a power-play goal of his own at 15:55 of the second period.
The teams then went scoreless until Haula ended the game at 15:23 of the second overtime.
While it was the first OT game in the history of the Golden Knights, the contest was also the longest in the history of the Kings.
Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 29 of 30 shots in the win. Jonathan Quick stopped 54 of 56, but took the loss.
Game 3 is Sunday night in Los Angeles.
Erik Haula scores the game-winning overtime goal in the second intermission to earn the Golden Knights their second win of the series. Vegas will travel to Los Angeles for Game 3 against the Kings on Sunday night. Game Recap
LAS VEGAS – The corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue is dominated by the Statue of Liberty, her incongruous existence in the Sonoran Desert made only slightly less surreal by the Empire State and Chrysler buildings behind her, part of the spectacularly kitschy New York-New York Hotel and Casino.
Above all the tourists and Elvises – or are they Elvi? – on Friday, the replica Lady Liberty wore a giant Vegas Golden Knights’ jersey.
Considering the current state of the America, the statue’s famous inscribed offer to "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" is cruelly ironic. Yet it perfectly suits the hockey team that plays in the big arena behind the New York-New York.
The Golden Knights accepted the tired and poor, the unwanted and over-priced, the unappreciated and unaccomplished from the National Hockey League’s teeming shores in order to build their expansion team.
And they constructed a sporting version of the American Dream, imagining big, working hard and, above all else, believing in themselves when no one else would. They won 51 regular-season games to become, by far, the most successful first-year team in NHL history. In a desert.
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Nothing seems impossible for the Knights because they’ve already done what seemed impossible.
Erik Haula, a 27-year-old former seventh-round draft pick who never had more than 15 goals in an NHL season until he scored 29 this year in Las Vegas, slipped a forehand under goalie Jonathan Quick at 15:23 of double overtime Friday as the Knights beat the Los Angeles Kings 2-1 to seize a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series.
This miraculous expansion team is now two wins away from advancing against the Kings, the two-time Stanley Cup winners who have been outplayed in both games so far. Put another way, the Golden Knights are 10 wins away from playing for the Stanley Cup.
Don’t scoff. Down the street from the Statue of Liberty is the Eiffel Tower and the great pyramid of Luxor. Anything is possible here. Anything is possible for the Knights.
James Neal, who actually played for the Stanley Cup last spring with the Nashville Predators before the Knights claimed him in the expansion draft, beautifully set up Haula’s winner in a game in which Vegas outshot Los Angeles 56-30.
Halfway through regulation time, the Kings were close to the Knights only on the scoreboard.
Vegas was outshooting Los Angeles 19-7, leading 1-0 and dominating territorially. On the rare instances the Kings possessed the puck in the offensive zone, their shots were one-and-done. All the longest shifts, the sustained pressure, seemed to be in the Los Angeles zone were the Kings struggled to match the Knights’ speed.
But from a faceoff in the Kings’ end, Golden Knights defenceman Brayden McNabb pinched down the boards, got his stick between the skates of former teammate Dustin Brown, and tripped the Los Angeles winger at 14:19 of the second period.
That power play was like a rescue mission for the Kings, who tied it 1-1 with the man-advantage at 15:55 when defenceman Paul Ladue’s long-range shot caromed off the pants of defenceman Deryk Engelland and past Vegas goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
In a game the Kings could have trailed by two or three goals, suddenly they were tied.
It was the first playoff goal surrendered by the Knights, who won Game 1 1-0 on Wednesday and took the lead in Game 2 when Alex Tuch reacted fastest to a lively rebound off the end boards after Jonathan Marchessault’s point shot missed the net but stranded Quick.
Quick, narrowly outplayed by Fleury on Wednesday, was brilliant in Game 2.
With superstar defenceman Drew Doughty suspended one game for his hit to the head Wednesday on William Carrier, and the Kings still missing No. 2 blue-liner Jake Muzzin with an undisclosed injury, the best L.A. defender was Quick.
He stopped 34 of 35 shots in regulation time and then the first 20 he faced in overtime, and several times had to make saves in bunches due to the Knights’ sustained pressure.
Game 3 of the best-of-seven first-round series is Sunday night in Los Angeles.
Back in December, after the Knights beat the Kings 3-2, Doughty declared: "There’s no way they’re going to be a better team than us by the end of the season."
But the Knights are a better team than the Kings at the end of the season.
What happens in Vegas, continues to happen in Vegas.
The NHL's Golden Knights are the toast of the town.
Erik Haula's goal in double overtime gave Vegas a 2-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Friday night for a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series.
"Honestly, I think that's my first overtime goal and I'm happy it came at this time; that's one of the best feelings in sports," Haula said. "Going into overtime we just stressed it in the locker room to just keep going after 'em, to keep getting pucks behind 'em, keep playing north, keep playing fast and I think we executed our game plan."
Vegas edges Los Angeles 2-1 to take 2-0 series lead, Jonathan Quick 54 saves in loss. 1:48
With less than five minutes on the clock in the second overtime, James Neal skated into the zone, looked past Alex Tuch and instead found a streaking Haula, who skated in on his own to beat goalie Jonathan Quick and send a towel-waving crowd of 18,588 into a frenzy.
"Obviously, he had the composure to hold the puck. I knew he was going to make that play. Maybe that helps we've been playing all year," Haula said of Neal. "I had good speed going to the net. ... I was able to slide a five-hole, he reacted. I was coming in with a lot of speed, I got lucky and we got the win."
Game 3 in the best-of-seven Western Conference series is Sunday night in Los Angeles.
Tuch scored for expansion Vegas in regulation, and Paul LaDue had the Kings' goal.
'Relief' after double OT
Marc-Andre Fleury made 29 saves for the Golden Knights. Quick stopped 54 shots for the Kings.
"Such a relief at the end," said Fleury, who has allowed just one goal in a little more than 155 minutes over the first two games. "It was long, it was hard. The guys did an awesome job again tonight. It was a good feeling to win at home in front of our fans."
The Golden Knights outshot Los Angeles in regulation, 35-20.
Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said Friday was a good example of why his scheme of playing four lines consistently all season is important, as his team continued to play with more pep while the Kings appeared fatigued as the second overtime wore on.
"Haula's a great skater. ... Obviously that last goal, Haula's speed created a lot of that goal," said Gallant, who got the victory exactly one year after being hired as coach of the Golden Knights. "As coaches, all year long, we played four lines and that's what we do, so hopefully that paid off a little bit tonight. We played four lines most of the overtime, because when you play that much hockey, guys start to cramp up. It was tough on them. It was a great game, great battle and unbelievable for our fans tonight."
The Kings, meanwhile, played without suspended defenceman Drew Doughty, a Norris Trophy contender who led the NHL in total minutes this season. The league's Department of Player Safety handed down a one-game suspension after Doughty's illegal hit to the head on Vegas forward William Carrier midway through the third period of the Golden Knights' 1-0 series-opening victory Wednesday night.
Kings defenceman Oscar Fantenberg led the team with 53 shifts, while fellow defenceman Alec Martinez led the club with 44 minutes, 43 seconds on ice.
In contrast, nobody on Vegas' roster played more than 38 minutes, with defenceman Nate Schmidt leading the Golden Knights at 37:19.
Kings set physical tone
Game 1 featured 127 hits, including 68 by the Kings, and the rugged play continued in Game 2, with the same physical theme. Los Angeles outhit the Golden Knights 80-56 after the two combined for 113 in regulation.
"[Quick] gave us a chance to win like he always does," Kings coach John Stevens said. "A lot of guys played hard tonight, not just Jonny. We had some guys play real hard [to] give us a chance to win. Now we've got to go home to take care of business at home."
Vegas got on the board first after Jonathan Marchessault's shot went wide and caromed off the end boards. Tuch was in front of the net to clean it up for his first career playoff goal, on a power play, giving the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead late in the first period.
The Kings got their first goal of the series on a power play, when LaDue fired a wrist shot from the point to beat Fleury with 4:05 left in the second.
Both teams had their chances in the first overtime, but Fleury and Quick were magnificent between the pipes.
Through two games the teams have played 155 minutes, 16 seconds, and Fleury and Quick have allowed just four goals combined.
