The Vegas Golden Knights (25-19-6) defeated Ottawa Senators (16-23-8) with 4-2 last night at the Canadian Tire Center. Their newly appointed coach Peter DeBoer debuted with a win after taking over the team this Wednesday.
However, that wasn’t so interesting for the home team fans, as they wanted to see one other face among the Knights.
Mark Stone had his first appearance here after getting traded to Las Vegas last February, and we can say that he still feels comfortable playing at his old ground. He would score a goal and post an assist, making a lot of troubles to his former teammates.
“Six great years over there. They took a chance on me from Day 1,” Stone stated after the match, about his time spent in the capital of Canada. “I was no shoo-in to be an NHL hockey player, and [the Senators] kind of helped me develop and molded me into the player that I am today.”
The hosts have prepared a video tribute to Stone, during which the entire arena made a standing ovation to their former leader. Stone went out on the ice, thanked the crowd, but didn’t let the warm welcome distract him from performing well this Thursday evening.
The guests opened the game well, and they were the first to score through Paul Stastny just 34 seconds after the start. This no doubt dazzled the already low-confident hosts who couldn’t do anything productive until the end of the opening frame.
Stone would double the lead with 1:05 before the end of the second period, with a wraparound after going around the net drawing the applause from the crowd, who wasn’t very pleased with the result, but showed respect once again.
What definitely killed the morale of the Senators was Chandler Stephenson’s breakaway goal in the moments when hosts had a power-play situation. He would pick one pass and head on a breakaway before placing the puck behind Craig Anderson.
Ottawa got the first score with Vladislav Namestnikov exactly one minute later, one-timing Chris Tierney’s assist.
After that came a massive mistake of the hosts with goalie Anderson practically giving away the puck to the rivals, and Ryan Reaves hitting the empty net to raise the result to 4-1.
The only thing Senators could to is to save the honor with one more goal with 7:30 left. Connor Brown netted that one on a power-play.
This was a ninth straight defeat for the Canadian team, and right now, things are not looking good at all for them. The Sens are second to the last in the Eastern Conference with 40 points in 41 matches.
Meanwhile, Golden Knights snapped a four-game losing streak. They came into this match with a new head coach after they fired Gerard Gallant.
“After a tough week and some hard days, it was nice to get a win and kind of move past that,” said DeBoer.
Up next, Vegas stays in Canada, only goes to Montreal to meet the Canadiens on Saturday. Meanwhile, the Senators host Calgary Flames on the same day.
