Golden Knights Visit Avalanche for West Showdown

Thu, Mar 25, 2021
By Jim Vassallo (Veri.bet Writer)

The Vegas Golden Knights (22-7-1, 45 points) visit the Colorado Avalanche (20-8-3, 43 points) in a showdown of the top two teams in the West Division on Thursday, March 25, at 9 PM ET.

Vegas is riding a 7-3-0 mark in the past 10 games, having won six of the last seven games. The Golden Knights are coming off a 5-1 win over the St. Louis Blues.

Mark Stone scored twice to lead the Golden Knights to victory in front of a little less than 4,000 fans.

“There’s no doubt there’s a confidence and composure to the group that, no matter the situation, we know what our game looks like when we’re playing well and we’re not,” Vegas coach Peter DeBoer said. “I think the guys have the ability to get back to that game when we need to.”

Stone, the Golden Knights’ captain, said, “If you look at the way we’ve been playing the last month or two, our record is really good. We’re winning in different areas. That’s what good teams do; we find ways to win hockey games. Tonight, we played our fifth game in eight days, coming in on a back-to-back with travel. We had to play smart, and I thought we did a good job. Third period, I thought we got our legs and pounded four lines out the door.”

Colorado had won seven in a row before suffering a 5-4 setback in a shootout to the Arizona Coyotes the last time on the ice. The Avalanche are 7-1-2 in their last 10 games played.

In the loss to the Coyotes, Arizona had jumped out to a 2-0 lead before Colorado could register a shot on goal.

The Avalanche then went on to score four straight goals, going up by two early in the third period. The Coyotes tied the game with 11:19 left in regulation. The teams played a scoreless overtime period before Arizona took home the victory in a shootout.

“After they made it 4-2, we needed something to go our way,” Coyotes head coach Rick Tocchet said. “I don’t know if it was magical, but that third goal really got the bench going.”

“We have to play a certain style, I thought we did for most of the game. Just accept who we are and play that style. Everybody contributed in their own way.”

The injury list is light for both teams heading into tonight’s contest at the Ball Arena:

• Conor Timmins (COL): day-to-day (upper body)
• Dennis Gilbert (COL): out (face)
• Alex Pietrangelo (VEG): out (undisclosed)
• Max Pacioretty (VEG): day-to-day (lower body)

The Avalanche are -1.5 favorites at home on Thursday night over the Golden Knights. The over-under is set at 5.5 total goals. This game should be close from start to finish and is difficult to predict with both teams playing excellent hockey in their last 10 games. However, the safe bet is to put money on the Over 5.5 goals scored.