The Knights overwhelm Kraken for their third straight win

Mark Stone scored a goal and two assists and Keegan Kolesar and Brett Howden each added a goal and an assist as the Vegas Golden Knights celebrated their third straight win over the Seattle Kraken 6-2 on Saturday night in Las Vegas.

Nicolas Hague, William Karlsson and Noah Hanifin also scored and Jack Eichel had two assists for Pacific Division leaders Vegas, which won for the 13th time in 16 home games.

Ilya Samsonov made 21 saves for the Golden Knights, who improved to 18-3-2, the best record in the NHL, with their seventh win in their last eight Western Conference games.

Vince Dunn and Jaden Schwartz scored goals and Chandler Stephenson had two assists for Seattle, which lost its fourth straight game. Philipp Grubauer finished his career against Vegas at 1-6-1 with 28 saves.

Seattle, which had scored just two goals total in its previous three games, took a 1-0 lead at 2:34 on a power-play goal from Dunn, who fired a wrist shot from the top right circle past Samsonov’s glove side. It was the fifth straight game in which the Golden Knights, who had vowed throughout the week to improve on their slow starts, allowed the first goal.

Vegas then took control with three goals in just over five minutes. Kolesar scored the first goal at 12:39 when he took a stretch pass from Victor Olofsson, broke down the right wing and fired a wrist shot over Grubauer’s left shoulder – his career-high eighth goal of the season.

Howden gave the Golden Knights the lead 71 seconds later. Eichel stole the puck from Dunn in the right corner and then passed to Howden, who cut through the slot where he fired a wrist shot past Grubauer.

Hague made it 3-1 at 17:48 with a wrist shot from the top of the left circle past Grubauer’s glove side.

Midway through the third period, the Golden Knights opened the game with goals from Karlsson, who redirected a pass from Kolesar with a shot between the legs while cutting in front of the goal crease, and from Hanifin, who redirected a pass from Stone midway through the third period scored left circle past Grubauer’s glove side.

Schwartz cut it to 5-2 with a power play goal with 6:02 left. The Kraken pulled Grubauer in for an extra attacker with 2:15 left and Stone sealed the win with an empty-net goal with 1:09 left.

–Field level media