Avalanche center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (41) celebrates with his team after scoring against the Golden Knights during the first period of their game at the T-Mobile Arena, Monday Dec. 23, 2019.
Published Monday, Dec. 23, 2019 | 3 p.m.
Updated Monday, Dec. 23, 2019 | 9:44 p.m.
Vegas Golden Podcast
Finishing off 2019
Justin Emerson and Case Keefer take a look at the Vegas Golden Knights' final five games of the calendar year, and whether they can use them to maintain their spot at the top of the Pacific Division.
The Golden Knights will not go into the NHL's holiday break merrily.
Vegas couldn't cap a hot two-week stretch with another victory Monday night at T-Mobile Arena, falling 7-3 to the Colorado Avalanche. Colorado poked a hole in the case that Vegas deserves to be considered the Western Conference favorite after winning four of its last five games.
For the second time this season, there was no debate on which team looked superior when the Avalanche and Golden Knights shared the ice. For the second time this season, former Golden Knight Pierre-Edouard Bellemare shined with his new team.
Bellemare scored the game's first goal, beating Marc-Andre Fleury via backhand less than five minutes into the first period and then fired a wrister past his former teammate late in the second period.
Vegas briefly tied the game after Bellemare's first goal, when an Avalanche player accidentally knocked the puck in the net after a Ryan Reaves shot, but they were only deadlocked for four minutes. Colorado chipped in two goals before the first intermission, by Matt Nieto and Nazem Kadri, and had a relatively comfortable lead the rest of the night.
The Avalanche got a pair of power play goals, by Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Ratantanen, before the end of the night. It was a rough night for Fleury, who had only 31 saves on 38 shots.
Colorado's Pavel Francouz outplayed Fleury with 29 saves on 32 shots.
The Golden Knights get back into action Friday at Anaheim before hosting Arizona on Saturday.
Stay tuned to lasvegassun.com for more coverage later.
Avalanche lead Golden Knights 5-2 at end of second period
Colorado is 20 minutes away from becoming the first team to beat Vegas twice at T-Mobile Arena this season. The Avalanche are on pace to do it comfortably on both occasions.
A two-goal lead at the end of the first period grew to a three-goal lead in the second period for the Avalanche with Gabriel Landeskog and Pierre-Eddouard Bellemare scoring. It was the former Golden Knight Bellemare's second goal of the game.
Vegas did get good news in the form of Max Pacioretty's return. The Golden Knights' points leader skated to the locker room with an injury in the first period but came back and scored to momentarily cut the Avalanche's lead to 3-2.
Pacioretty also got into a brief scuffle with Matt Calvert in between a referee, who successfully broke apart the two in quick fashion. The officials let another fight, between the Golden Knights' Deryk Engelland and the Avalanches Valeri Nichushkin go for a little longer — much to the detriment of the latter.
Engelland wrecked Nichushkin with an onslaught of right hands. That's been the only win for the Golden Knights so far tonight.
Avalanche lead Golden Knights 3-1 at end of first period
Shea Theodore and Marc-Andre Fleury will want to forget this first period.
The Golden Knights trail the Avalanche 3-1 largely because of defensive and goaltending breakdowns. Theodore has been on the ice for all three of Colorado's goals, and was partially responsible for each of the first two.
Former Golden Knight Pierre-Edouard Bellemare got behind Theodore 4:37 into the game and backhanded a puck past Fleury to start the scoring. The Golden Knights tied the game on a goal five minutes later by Ryan Reaves, but then Matt Nieto beat the defense and scored while the Avalanche were shorthanded.
On Colorado's final goal of the first period, both Fleury and Mark Stone failed to corral a rebound and Nazem Kadri scored in close proximity.
Avalanche goalie Pavel Francouz has 19 saves while Fleury has 10 on 13 shots.
Pregame
When the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook refreshed its NHL future odds this morning, three teams sat tied atop the board as Western Conference favorites
Two of them play at 7 p.m. today at T-Mobile Arena before the whole NHL goes on a three-day Christmas break. It's no exaggeration to call the Colorado Avalanche's second trip to Vegas of the season a potential Western Conference Finals preview.
They're both trailing the defending Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues for the best overall record in the Western Conference, but all three are now at 11-to-2 odds to reach this year's finals. And the Golden Knights and Avalanche have both arguably been more efficient than the Blues.
Colorado sits in first in the west in point differential by a significant margin — its plus-27 is 11 goals better than St. Louis' second place plus-16 — while Vegas leads the entire league in expected goals. The talent on both rosters corroborates the underlying numbers as there's star power on each side.
The Avalanche's top line featuring Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Ratanen is considered one of the best in hockey, and the Golden Knights' best unit featuring Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty isn't far behind.
The Golden Knights will need to bring their best to compete with the Avalanche, something that didn't happen in the teams' first matchup. Colorado thumped Vegas on Oct. 25, handing the Golden Knights their biggest loss of the year in a 6-1 win.
That memorably included a goal from former Golden Knight Pierre-Edouard Bellemare 28 seconds into the game. Bellemare has continued a career resurgence that started with the Golden Knights in their inaugural season in Colorado, where he's posted 10 points and strong possession numbers while centering the Avalanche's third line.
Bellemare was always close with Marc-Andre Fleury, a fellow French speaker, and the two will square off again tonight. Fleury is expected to start in net for the Golden Knights after backup Malcolm Subban led them to a 3-1 win in San Jose last night.
Teams typically perform below expectations on nights with back-to-back games, but it's brought the best out of the Golden Knights this season. Vegas is 5-1 on the second night of back-to-backs.
Colorado last played Saturday, getting upset 5-3 at home against the Blackhawks. The Avalanche should be eager to atone for the defeat against one of their biggest potential hurdles to reach the Stanley Cup.
TV: AT&T Sports Net (DirecTV 684, Cox 1313, CenturyLink 1760)
Radio: Fox Sports 1340 AM and 98.9 FM
Betting line: Golden Knights minus-130, Wild plus-110; over/under: 6 (minus-115, minus-105)
Golden Knights (20-13-6, 46 points) (10-6-3 home), first place (tied) in the Pacific Division
Coach: Gerard Gallant (third season)
Points leader: Max Pacioretty (36)
Goals leader: Max Pacioretty (15)
Assists leader: William Karlsson (22)
Expected goalie: Marc-Andre Fleury (2.63 GAA, .915 save percentage)
Avalanche (22-11-3, 47 points) (12-6-1 road), second place in the Central Division
Coach: Jared Bednar (fourth season)
Points leader: Nathan MacKinnon (53)
Goals leader: Nathan MacKinnon (21)
Assists leader: Nathan MacKinnon (32)
Expected goalie: Philipp Grubauer (2.86 GAA, .913 save percentage)
Golden Knights projected lineup
Forwards
Jonathan Marchessault —William Karlsson — Reilly Smith
Max Pacioretty — Chandler Stephenson — Mark Stone
Valentin Zykov — Paul Stastny — Alex Tuch
William Carrier — Tomas Nosek — Ryan Reaves
Defensemen
Brayden McNabb — Nate Schmidt
Nic Hague — Shea Theodore
Nick Holden — Deryk Engelland
Goalies
Marc-Andre Fleury, Malcolm Subban
Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy