After a loss nearly two weeks ago, Vegas coach Gerard Gallant yearned for a return of the misfits, the nickname the team adopted during their stellar inaugural season a year ago. Three days later, the Golden Knights acquired Mark Stone in a blockbuster trade with Ottawa, and the misfits rediscovered their mojo.
Deryk Engelland on Wednesday night scored his second goal of the season in the third period to lift Vegas to a 2-1 win over the Calgary Flames.
The Golden Knights have won five straight since acquiring Stone and have pulled seven points behind second-placed San Jose in the Pacific Division and 10 behind first-placed Calgary.
“There was a lot of things I liked tonight,” Gallant said. “I thought in the first period we weren’t as good as we were in the prior games, but after that I thought we played a great hockey game.”
Shea Theodore also scored for the Golden Knights and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 33 shots for his league-leading 33rd win of the season.
Fleury, who recorded back-to-back shutouts in his previous two starts, tied Jacques Plante for eighth on the NHL’s all-time wins list with his 437th victory.
The 15-year veteran goaltender has allowed just one goal in his past 228 minutes, 43 seconds.
“They’re one of the best in the league and a big challenge for us. I thought we rose to it,” Fleury said. “We’ve been playing good hockey lately. Just another example of beating a good team here. Those games are fun. They’re close, they’re intense and fun to win.”
Vegas improved to 14-5-2 against the tightly contested Pacific Division and 3-0-0 this march. The Golden Knights are 5-2-0 against Calgary all-time, including a perfect 4-0-0 mark at home.
Engelland, who played 226 games for the Flames from 2014 to 2017, scored his first goal since Dec. 6 last year when he beat Calgary goalie David Rittich with a tight fit into the corner.
“It’s always nice to chip in, no matter when it is,” Engelland said. “It’s definitely a little sweeter against your old team.”
Travis Hamonic scored Calgary’s lone goal, while Rittich made 36 saves.
Calgary, who are 7-3-1 in their past 11 games, are now 0-3-0 this month. The Flames saw their four-game road win streak snapped.
Theodore put the defending Western Conference champs on top midway through the first, with a slap shot into the top corner that gave Vegas a 1-0 lead.
Calgary thought they tied the game when Johnny Gaudreau backhanded a rebound past Fleury, but after the goal was challenged for goaltender interference, officials ruled that “the actions of [Matthew] Tkachuk impaired Fleury’s ability to defend his goal.”
Fleury’s career-high scoreless streak came to an end in the second period, when Hamonic lasered a slap shot from the point to tie the score at 1-1. Fleury had not allowed a goal in the previous 200 minutes, 41 seconds.
Tempers flared near the end of the second when Tkachuck backed into Fleury and Golden Knights defenseman Colin Miller took offense.
After the two tussled, Tkachuck got in Fleury’s face and was met by Vegas’ Cody Eakin and Nate Schmidt. Then it was Fleury laying his stick down and removing his right glove while staring down Rittich, who did not budge from his zone.
“He came to the blue line, so you feel a little challenge,” Fleury said. “I don’t want to be chasing a goalie around though. That’s fine, I just thought he was gonna come. Nothing happened.”
In other games on Wednesday, the Washington Capitals defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 5-3, the Vancouver Canucks edged the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2 and the St Louis Blues outlasted the Anaheim Ducks 5-4.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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