The Vegas Golden Knights scored seven unanswered goals to secure a 7-2 victory over the Nashville Predators at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday, marking their seventh consecutive win. Mark Stone extended his point streak to a career-high 11 games with a goal in the third period. Five Vegas players each tallied a goal and an assist in the dominant performance.
The Vegas Golden Knights (24-11-12) improved to 7-0-1 in their last eight games with a convincing 7-2 win against the Nashville Predators (23-21-4), who entered on a three-game winning streak. The game took place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Nashville struck first in the opening period when Luke Evangelista deflected a wrist shot from Roman Josi past goaltender Justus Annunen at 14:10, giving the Predators a 1-0 lead. Vegas responded in the second period, tying the score at 1-1 just 17:17 on Alexander Holtz's one-timer from the point, which deflected off Fedor Svechkov's stick and slipped under Annunen's arm. Holtz said, “I tried to get as much heat as possible on it. Then when I saw it got redirected, I thought it had a good chance of going in.”
Shea Theodore quickly put Vegas ahead 2-1 at 18:22 with a wrist shot into the top left corner in his 600th NHL game. The third period saw Vegas pull away, as Pavel Dorofeyev scored his team-leading 20th goal on a 2-on-1 rush at 5:52, assisted by Mitch Marner. Stone made it 4-1 at 8:52 on a pass from Jack Eichel during another 2-on-1. Cole Reinhardt and Marner added goals at 12:26 and 13:16, respectively, before Keegan Kolesar tucked in the seventh at 15:12. Filip Forsberg scored a power-play goal for Nashville at 19:38.
Akira Schmid made 27 saves for Vegas, while Annunen stopped 29 shots. Stone now has 18 points (10 goals, eight assists) in his streak, tying Tomas Hertl for the second-longest in franchise history. Coach Bruce Cassidy praised the Marner-Dorofeyev pairing: “I thought ‘Pav’ would be a good fit... Work together on the bench. So, they have.” Nashville's Josi reflected, “Definitely got away from us... We just stopped defending.” Notes include Jonathan Marchessault's return from injury and Ryan O'Reilly's 1,200th game.
