Paul Cotter scored two goals and Nicolas Roy had a goal and two assists as the Vegas Golden Knights snapped a season-long three-game losing streak with a 6-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
It was Cotter’s second two-goal game of the season. Alec Martinez had a goal and an assist, Michael Amadio and Byron Froese each scored goals and Chandler Stephenson and Alex Pietrangelo both added two assists for Vegas, which finished a season-high seven-game homestand with a 3-4-0 mark. Logan Thompson made 20 saves.
T.J. Oshie and Marcus Johansson scored for Washington, which played without All-Star forward Alex Ovechkin. Ovechkin, who leads the team with 30 goals and 52 points, was a late scratch for what the team called a lower-body injury.
Darcy Kuemper, coming in off his league-high fifth shutout of the season on Thursday at Arizona, was lifted midway through the second period after allowing four goals on 18 shots. Charlie Lindgren finished up and stopped seven of nine shots.
Vegas jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first 7:36. Martinez got his first goal since April 27, 2022, at Chicago when he slapped in a rebound of a Stephenson shot off the post into an open net. Roy followed with his ninth when he finished a 2-on-1 with Jonathan Marchessault by sliding a shot under Kuemper’s left pad.
The Golden Knights then blew the game open with three more goals in the first 13:38 of the second period, increasing their lead to 5-0 while also chasing Kuemper.
Amadio made it 3-0 when he put a spinning wrist shot in the slot into the top-right corner for his seventh goal of the season. Froese followed with his first goal with the Golden Knights when his wrist shot from the left circle hit the left post and then caromed in off Kuemper’s back. Cotter increased the lead to 5-0 when he backhanded a shot through Lindgren’s pads.
Oshie cut it to 5-1 near the end of the period when he redirected Erik Gustafsson’s pass into the slot for his 10th goal of the season.
Cotter made it 6-1 early in the third period with a backhand shot from the slot through Lindgren’s pads for his eighth goal of the season. Johansson followed with his 12th goal of the season when he redirected a Trevor van Riemsdyk pass into the slot past Thompson.
–Field Level Media
