Steven Stamkos reached a career milestone by scoring his 600th NHL goal during the Nashville Predators' 4-2 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on December 31, 2025. The 35-year-old forward tied the game on a first-period power play at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Nashville has now won five of its past six games.
The Nashville Predators improved to 18-17-4 with a 4-2 win against the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday, December 31, 2025. Steven Stamkos, in his second season with Nashville after 16 years with the Tampa Bay Lightning, became the 22nd player in NHL history to score 600 goals. He achieved the mark with a power-play one-timer from the left face-off circle at 15:37 of the first period, tying the score at 2-2. Stamkos is the third active player to reach 600 goals, behind Alex Ovechkin (912) of the Washington Capitals and Sidney Crosby (645) of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Stamkos has 18 goals in 39 games this season, including 12 in December and 10 in his past 10 outings. 'I haven’t scored a ton of those this year, but I guess if it was going to be No. 600, it was kind of like I’ve scored a lot of other ones,' Stamkos said. 'Awesome to do it in a win like this with how we’re going as a group.'
Vegas struck first with Mark Stone's power-play goal at 5:35 of the first, assisted by Pavel Dorofeyev. Ben Hutton made it 2-0 at 9:06 on a redirection of Tomas Hertl's slap shot. Nick Perbix pulled Nashville within one at 11:20 with a wrist shot from the point.
Reid Schaefer gave the Predators a 3-2 lead at 16:21 of the first with a wrist shot from the left circle. Michael Bunting extended the advantage to 4-2 at 11:52 of the second on a power-play redirection.
Justus Annunen stopped 29 shots for Nashville, including 18 in the third period, while Luke Evangelista recorded two assists. Akira Schmid made 15 saves for Vegas, which fell to 17-10-11 and has lost six of its past seven games (1-4-2). Pavel Dorofeyev had two assists for the Golden Knights.
'When your game goes in the direction that you don’t want it to go, it’s up to the head coach to fix it,' Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. Nashville coach Andrew Brunette added, 'It was another gutsy win... Big two points.'
Notes from the game include Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb leaving with an upper-body injury, while Shea Theodore and Jack Eichel missed their seventh straight games for the Golden Knights, and Nashville's Jonathan Marchessault sat out his sixth consecutive contest.
