Mark Stone recorded a goal and two assists as the Vegas Golden Knights jumped out to a four-goal first-period lead en route to a 4-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday in Las Vegas.
Adin Hill made 32 saves to pick up his 100th career win (100-67-16).
Jack Eichel and Pavel Dorofeyev each had a goal and an assist, Ivan Barbashev had two assists and Mitch Marner also scored for Vegas, which won its second straight game.
The Golden Knights enter the Olympic break with a four-point lead over Edmonton Oilers for first place in the Pacific Division.
Trevor Moore scored for Los Angeles, which took its fourth loss in five games (1-3-1). Anze Kopitar picked up an assist for his 1,300th career point, the 39th skater in NHL history to accomplish that feat.
Anton Forsberg made 18 saves for the Kings, who head into the break three points behind the Anaheim Ducks in the race for the final Western Conference wild-card spot.
Vegas, plagued by slow starts during a recent stretch that saw it lose seven of eight games (1-5-2), scored four goals in the span of 5:27 midway through the opening period — and they came on four consecutive shots.
Eichel, alone in the left circle, started the spurt at the 8:22 mark with a wrist shot past Forsberg’s glove side. Stone, skating down the slot, then put in a backhand shot off a Barbashev pass at 11:49.
Dorofeyev made it 3-0 with a power-play goal at 13:29, blasting a one-timer from the bottom of the right circle for his team-leading 26th goal, 14 of which have come on the power play.
Marner scored 20 seconds later with a one-timer short-side from the lower left circle off a spinning pass from Dorofeyev.
Moore cut it to 4-1 at the 15:03 mark of the first period when he sped past Shea Theodore on the right wing and chipped in a shot over Hill.
Kings forward Andrei Kuzmenko had to be helped off the ice late in the first period after being hit in the upper left jaw with a puck. Kuzmenko returned briefly in the second period before being declared out with an upper-body injury.
–Field Level Media
