Knights Continue Hot Streak With Win Over Blackhawks

By Chicago Tribune

LAS VEGAS – Like a lot of road venues when the Chicago Blackhawks are in town, T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas has plenty of red among the seas of black and gray worn by the Golden Knights and their fans. It gave Tuesday's first-ever matchup between the Knights and Hawks the feel of the many prize fights that have taken place in Las Vegas with the crowd reacting to each team's next counterpunch. The Knights continued their hot start with a 4-2 victory over the Hawks as they moved to 7-1-0 on the season while the Hawks fell to 5-3-2. Oscar Dansk, making his first NHL start, stopped 29 shots for the Knights while Corey Crawford had 29 for the Hawks. "It is what we've seen so far out of how this team

"It is what we've seen so far out of how this team has been playing out of the gate, how they're playing in their own building," captain Jonathan Toews said. "It's a fun exciting atmosphere. No doubt they're excited to play and just to go out there and not necessarily be the underdogs, but just go out there and try to make teams make plays and score and frustrate them."

The Knights frustrated the Hawks most of the night after the Hawks got the first score of the night on a shorthanded goal from John Hayden, his first goal of the season. Hayden made a nice play to steal the puck at the Knights' blue line and skated around a few defenders before beating Knights goaltender Dansk to the give the Hawks the lead 3 minutes, 33 seconds into the game.

But after that it was all Knights. Just 26 seconds later, William Karlsson redirected a shot from Colin Miller to beat Corey Crawford at 3:59.
Again, the Hawks were outshot 33-31, a growing trend throughout the season.

The Knights would make it 2-1 when Tomas Nosek stuffed home a loose rebound off a shot from Deryk Engelland at 5:46.

The Knights made it 3-1 in the second period when Pierre-Edouard Bellemare converted a goal from the slot after two penalties expired on Ryan Hartman. Hartman had gone off after confronting Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb for a hit McNabb put on Nick Schmaltz. Hartman was assessed slashing and roughing penalties.

"Give them credit, they had a lot of structure to their game, not a lot of time, not a lot of space," coach Joel Quenneville said. "They might have quicker in certain areas. I thought we were in a great spot there killing that four-minute penalty. They scored the big goal that kind of took the momentum away from us."

Jonathan Marchessault made it 4-1 for the Knights with a power-play goal from the left circle at 10:20 of the third period. Patrick Kane added his fifth goal late for the Hawks.

But for most of the night, the Hawks had little offensive flow and Quenneville hinted there might be changes to the lines before Friday's game against the Nashville Predators.

"I think that we got to manage the puck better," Quenneville said. "Teams that hang onto the puck against us they get more zone time and off of that they get shots and momentum in the game."

Tuesday,  October 24 Scoreboard

New York Islanders 5, Arizona 3

Anaheim 6, Philadelphia 2

Pittsburgh 2, Edmonton 1 (OT)

Tampa Bay 5, Carolina 1

Buffalo 1, Detroit 0

Montreal 5, Florida 1

Los Angeles 3, Ottawa 2 (SO)

Calgary 3, Nashville 2 (SO)

Vancouver 1, Minnesota 0

Colorado 5, Dallas 3

Vegas 4, Chicago 2

Wednesday,  October 25 Schedule (All Times Central)

Buffalo at Columbus, 7 p.m.

Calgary at St. Louis, 7 p.m.