Golden Knights rout Kings, take over 1st in Western Conference

LOS ANGELES — Seeing arsenic the Golden Knights were playing their archetypal crippled since Dec. 21 and coming disconnected the vacation break, they tin beryllium excused for not being sharp.

But the bully acold outweighed the atrocious Tuesday night, and the Knights returned to enactment with a 6-3 triumph implicit the Los Angeles Kings astatine Crypto.com Arena.

Jonathan Marchessault scored doubly and added an assistance to assistance the Knights triumph for the ninth clip successful their past 11 games and determination into the apical spot successful the Western Conference with 42 points.

Marchessault enactment location a rebound for a 3-1 pb astatine the extremity of a turbo-charged information of the archetypal play erstwhile the teams combined for 4 goals. He added his team-best 16th extremity aboriginal successful the 3rd period.

Chandler Stephenson and Mattias Janmark scored aboriginal successful the 2nd play to enactment the Knights up 5-1 and pursuit Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick.

Stephenson and Reilly Smith each finished with 2 points.

Goalie Laurent Brossoit made his 2nd consecutive commencement successful spot of Robin Lehner and had 2 cardinal saves precocious successful the 2nd play connected a Los Angeles powerfulness play to support the Kings from climbing backmost into the game.

Here are 3 takeaways from the game:

1. Stone goes connected IR

The Knights aren’t scheduled to instrumentality to Los Angeles during the regular season, and it’s astir apt a bully happening considering each the injuries that look to travel them to Southern California.

Captain Mark Stone (undisclosed) and Lehner (lower body) were scratched with injuries, and some are listed arsenic time to day, according to adjunct manager Steve Spott.

Stone, who near successful the 2nd play of a nonaccomplishment to Tampa Bay connected Dec. 21, was placed connected injured reserve earlier the game, according to the NHL media website. He besides was wounded during the Knights’ past sojourn to the arena formerly known arsenic Staples Center successful October and missed a month.

Lehner has been retired since helium was injured against the New York Islanders connected Dec. 19 and hasn’t practiced since. Logan Thompson served arsenic the backup against the Kings.

The Knights already were without defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, forwards Evgenii Dadonov and Brett Howden, and manager Pete DeBoer due to the fact that of COVID-19 protocol.

Winger Max Pacioretty and defenseman Nic Hague were successful the lineup aft being listed arsenic game-time decisions.

2. Stirring sequence

There wasn’t overmuch enactment for 18:44 of the archetypal period, but the different 1:16 much than made up for it.

The teams combined for 4 goals successful a heart-pumping agelong that saw the Knights look with a 3-1 lead.

Smith and Keegan Kolesar scored 26 seconds isolated earlier Kings guardant Adrian Kempe tracked down a agelong walk disconnected the extremity boards and bushed Brossoit to chopped the Knights’ pb to 2-1.

Marchessault capped the scoring flurry astatine 11:09 erstwhile helium enactment location a rebound aft William Karlsson deed the post.

The lone clip the Knights scored 3 goals faster was Jan. 30, 2018, against Calgary erstwhile they took 53 seconds.

It was the 24th lawsuit successful NHL past of teams combining for 4 goals successful a span of 76 seconds oregon fewer, according to NHL nationalist relations. Montreal and Pittsburgh needed 64 seconds to propulsion disconnected the feat Nov. 27.

3. Power trip

The powerfulness play remained blistery — no, that’s not a misprint — with goals by Smith and Stephenson.

It was the 3rd consecutive crippled the Knights scored with the antheral vantage and the seventh successful the past eight.

Since Dec. 10, the Knights are 9-for-23 (39.1 percent) connected the powerfulness play, which ranks 3rd successful the league.

“It’s a authorities of mind, that guys are successful a existent bully framework of caput close now,” Spott said Monday. “We’ve been shooting the puck a batch much recently, and that’s led to affirmative things.”

Contact David Schoen astatine dschoen@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ connected Twitter.