The Vegas Golden Knights saved their best performance of the opening round for last and dominated the Winnipeg Jets with their first chance in an elimination game.
Chandler Stephenson scored twice on Thursday as Vegas ousted the Jets from their Western Conference opening-round series with a 4-1 victory in Game 5.
“I think it was our best, or closest to complete, but like I said, we still have work to do and we know that,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Nobody plays their best game in the first round. You keep building, and we’ll do the same.”
Photo: AP
The Golden Knights, who lost Game 1 before winning four straight, became the first team to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Vegas, who went to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season in 2018, are now 42-29 in the post-season. Vegas improved to 8-5 in 13 playoff series since entering the league.
Mark Stone added a goal and two assists, while William Karlsson also scored for the Golden Knights. Goaltender Laurent Brossoit made 30 saves.
“I thought overall it was one of our better games,” Stone said. “I thought we stuck to the program for the majority of those last four games that we played.”
Vezina Trophy candidate Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves for the Jets and Kyle Connor scored late in the third period to ruin Brossoit’s shutout bid.
Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said he was “disgusted” with his team’s effort, which he compared to a 4-9-1 run from late January through February.
“I’m so disappointed and disgusted right now, that’s my thoughts,” Bowness said. “No pushback. It’s the same crap we saw in February. As soon as we were challenged for first place, and teams were coming after us, we had no pushback. This series we had no pushback. Their better players were so much better than ours, it’s not even close... They were the better team in the regular season, they were the better team in this series.”
Stephenson put Vegas on the board first just 50 seconds into the game when he took a feed from Stone and beat Hellebuyck before he could get back to the right side of the crease.
Leading 1-0 after one period, the Golden Knights opened the floodgates with three second-period goals.
Stone, 42 seconds in, gathered a bouncing puck and ripped a wrist-shot from the slot to increase Vegas’ lead to 2-0.
Next, Karlsson finished Michael Amadio’s backhand pass between two Jets with a one-timer from the doorstep.
Karlsson now has 11 points (3 goals, 8 assists) in 16 career potential series-clinching games, the most in Golden Knights franchise history.
Stephenson added his second goal of the game when he snapped a one-timer from the left circle during a power play midway through the second period.
In Newark, New Jersey, Erik Haula had two goals and an assist, while Akira Schmid stopped 23 shots as the Devils beat the New York Rangers 4-0 to take a 3-2 lead in their first-round series.
Dawson Mercer had a goal and an assist, while Ondrej Palat also scored to help New Jersey move one win away from advancing with their third straight win after losing the first two games at home.
Igor Shesterkin finished with 39 saves for the Rangers, who have been outscored 9-2 over the past three games after a pair of 5-1 wins to open the series.
In Toronto, Michael Eyssimont had a goal and an assist as the Tampa Bay Lightning forced Game 6 in their first-round playoff series with a 4-2 victory over the Maple Leafs.
Anthony Cirelli also had a goal and an assist, Nicholas Paul scored and Alex Killorn got an empty-net goal for Tampa. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 28 saves.
Morgan Rielly and Auston Matthews scored for Toronto, who got 34 stops from Ilya Samsonov.
The Leafs lead the series 3-2.
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