Reilly Smith scored the game-winner in the fifth round of a shootout and Pavel Dorofeyev netted two goals in regulation during the Vegas Golden Knights’ 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Monday in Saint Paul, Minn.
Despite the defeat, the Wild clinched a playoff berth thanks to the point for the overtime loss plus the Nashville Predators’ 5-1 loss to the Dallas Stars.
After Joel Eriksson Ek and Dorofeyev traded goals in the fourth round of the shootout, Vegas goaltender Laurent Brossoit made a blocker save on Ryan Hartman to start the fifth round. Smith then put a backhander through the pads of Minnesota goalie Filip Gustavsson to win it and also give the Golden Knights a three-game sweep of their season series with the Wild.
William Karlsson had two assists and Keegan Kolesar also scored for Vegas, while Brossoit finished with 30 saves. Matt Boldy scored his 30th goal of the season and also had an assist and Brandon Duhaime and John Klingberg also scored goals for Minnesota. Gustavsson stopped 23 shots.
Stars 5, Predators 1
Jason Robertson had a goal and three assists to cross the 100-point plateau and Dallas clinched a Stanley Cup playoff berth with a win against visiting Nashville.
Robertson, 23, has 43 goals and 58 assists. Joe Pavelski had a goal and an assist and Scott Wedgewood made 26 saves for the Stars in his return from a lower-body injury that kept him out for a month and a half. Miro Heiskanen had two assists.
Cal Foote scored and Juuse Saros made 21 saves for the Predators. Nashville has dropped four of its past six games and is five points behind the Winnipeg Jets for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
Kraken 8, Coyotes 1
Seven different Seattle players recorded multi-point games as the Kraken routed visiting Arizona and moved closer to clinching a playoff berth.
Jared McCann scored two goals for Seattle, and Morgan Geekie, Ryan Donato and Carson Soucy each had a goal and an assist. Daniel Sprong, Justin Schultz and Vince Dunn each had two assists, and Jordan Eberle, William Borgen and Oliver Bjorkstrand also scored. Philipp Grubauer stopped 20 shots.
Lawson Crouse scored the only goal of the game for the Coyotes, who are 0-6-2 in their past eight games. Ivan Prosvetov made 24 saves.
–Field Level Media
