Marchessault scores twice, Golden Knights hang on for 6-5 win over Jets

Jonathan Marchessault was happy to take advantage of the Winnipeg Jets.

The Vegas Golden Knights forward scored his second power-play goal late in the third period to break a tie and help lift his team to a 6-5 victory over the Jets on Tuesday.

“I thought our power play looked good in the third, and sometimes you need the power play to win games and tonight it did,” Marchessault said.

Vegas went 2-for-3 with the man advantage Tuesday while Winnipeg was 1-for-2.

The final minutes of the game were action-packed, with William Karlsson adding an empty-net strike for Vegas with 1:24 left on the clock and Jets centre Mark Scheifele completing a hat trick with two seconds to go in the third.

Golden Knights' captain Mark Stone scored twice, while defenceman Daniil Miromanov put away his first NHL goal and contributed a pair of assists. Chandler Stephenson registered four helpers.

Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said being able to move Stephenson to centre in place of injured Jack Eichel is a bonus for the team.

“He was very assertive tonight with his pace,” Cassidy said of Stephenson. “He’s got such deceptive speed. You can pre-scout it, say he can really go, and all of sudden until you see him fly by you with an effortless stride I don’t think you truly appreciate it.”

Adin Hill stopped 29 shots for the Golden Knights (21-9-1).

Morgan Barron and Sam Ganer each had a goal for the Jets (18-9-1) and Connor Hellebuyck made 27 saves.

“That was a hell of a hockey game and give their goalie credit,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said of Hill. “On our last power play in the third, he made four Grade A (saves), give him credit for that.”

It was the first time the Jets have lost two consecutive games since a 5-2 defeat in Vegas on Oct. 20 and a 4-1 loss to Toronto at home on Oct. 22.

The game featured the Western Conference's division heavyweights, with Winnipeg going into the game atop the Central and Vegas leading the Pacific.

“We showed we can certainly play with them and with the best teams in the league and we're going to continue to stay in that fight,” Bowness said.

The two sides came into the third period with the score knotted at 3-3.

Scheifele gave his side the advantage 41 second into the frame, putting away his second goal of the night on a power play.

He took a cross-ice pass from Kyle Connor, going down on one knee and firing in the puck in for his team-leading 17th goal of the season.

“When we would get a lead, they kept pouncing on us,” Scheifele said. “They were keeping their speed and we just had to be a little more on our toes, as opposed to letting the game come to us.”

Marchessault levelled the game at 4-4 with his first power-play marker at 9:38, then scored the go-ahead goal at 17:44.

The Golden Knights led 2-1 after the first period.
Scheifele scored his first goal of the game when the puck bounced off him from a Josh Morrissey point shot at 9:22 of the first. Morrissey extended his point streak to six games and has six assists during that span.

Just over two minutes later, Miromanov tallied his first career goal in his second season and 17th game with the Golden Knights.

Stone provided the 2-1 lead with two seconds remaining in the period off a rebound from a Stephenson one-timer blast from the point.

Barron was rewarded for his effort with his third goal of the season. His first attempt at putting in a rebound hit the post, but he got a backhand on the puck and flipped it past Hill to tie it 2-2 at 11:16.

Stone regained Vegas’s lead at 15:34 with his 12th of the season, but Gagner tipped in a Brenden Dillon shot 39 seconds later for the 3-3 tie.

The result gave Vegas a sweep of the three-game season series, including one overtime victory.

MISSING PIECES

Eichel, who has 29 points in 27 games, was placed on injured reserve Monday with a lower-body injury. He's listed as day-to-day.

Defenceman Shea Theodore (knee) is week-to-week and Zach Whitecloud (leg) is month-to-month. Veteran blueliner Alex Pietrangelo is away indefinitely because of an illness in the family.