Red-hot first period holds up as Golden Knights nip Coyotes comeback

Here’s just how ridiculous the first period of Friday’s game was: It took until there was 2:49 left in the first period for the Arizona Coyotes to have as many shots as the Golden Knights had goals in the frame.

Even more ridiculous? It was 5-0 at one point and the Coyotes made it a game.

The Golden Knights challenged themselves to start strong and certainly did that. The rest of the game was a little suspect, but a four-goal first period gave them too big of a cushion for Arizona to overcome in an eventual 7-4 victory at T-Mobile Arena.

“We know we have a few things to clean up, but all in all I think it was a pretty good game,” goalie Robin Lehner said. “We obviously don’t want to let in those goals in the third, but every time you can get a win now in this stretch before the playoffs, get away with a couple mistakes, it’s a learning experience and you’ve just got to get better at it.”

Coach Pete DeBoer said after morning skate he wanted to team to be better earlier in games. In a two-game split in St. Louis earlier in the week, he said he didn’t like the first 10 minutes in either game, including the one they won 6-1.

By the 10-minute mark on Friday, the Golden Knights already had a quartet of goals. Jonathan Marchessault, William Carrier, Keegan Kolesar and Reilly Smith all scored, and Vegas led in shots 22-8.

To illustrate it further: The Golden Knights had 14 high-danger chances in the first period and 2.5 expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick. There have been seven times this season they didn’t surpass those totals all game.

“It won the game for us,” Smith said. “The first four, five shifts we generated 10 to 15 shots and a couple goals and I think that changed the game. As the game went on I think we took our foot off the gas but thankfully we had such a good start we were able to still pull it out because of what were able to do the first couple of shifts and be able to roll on from that.”

Chandler Stephenson added a goal early in the second period to make it 5-0. A five-goal lead is typically a good time to tune out, but if you did on Friday then you missed quite the ending.

Arizona’s Nick Schmaltz scored on the power play in the final minute of the second, then Dryden Hunt and Clayton Keller scored a minute apart to start the third. Smith scored his second of the game, but Michael Bunting answered 15 seconds later and suddenly the game was 6-4 with half the period still to go.

The third period wasn’t pretty, but Vegas locked it down after that. From Bunting’s goal until the end of the game, the Golden Knights only allowed four shots on goal, and the last one came with 4:17 remaining. According to Moneypuck.com's live odds of the game, the Coyotes never got within an 8% chance of winning the game after Vegas’ big lead.

Max Pacioretty ended any drama with an empty-net goal with 55 seconds remaining.

Still, the frantic comeback left a sour taste in the coach’s mouth.

“You’re disappointed because you don’t walk out with the feeling that you should,” DeBoer said. “You should walk out feeling great about that game. We did a lot of really great things, but you don’t because of the way the third period went.”

Overall, the game was a success for Vegas. Prior to the third period, it was arguably the most dominant the Golden Knights had looked all season. They did finish with a season-high seven goals, after all.

Even if they were a little miffed with how the third period went, the mood in the room seemed to be aware of the shortcomings, but pleased with the overall outcome.

“We were really good in the first period, the second was just OK and the third was definitely not how a winning team is supposed to come out,” Marchessault said. “We’ve got to be able to close out games way easier than that. We’re definitely going to have to be aware next game to play a full 60 minutes.”