ST. LOUIS (AP) — Jonathan Marchessault scored his 200th career goal and Jack Eichel added a goal and an assist, leading the Vegas Golden Knights to a 6-3 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night.
Zach Whitecloud, Keegan Kolesar, Michael Amadio and William Karlsson also scored for Vegas, and Logan Thompson had 26 saves.
“He’s a goal scorer but he can make plays too,” coach Bruce Cassidy said about Marchessault. “He’s a good two-way player for us but let’s face it, he gets excited to score. That’s a big part of what he brings to the table for us.
Jordan Kyrou, Jake Neighbours and Kevin Hayes had goals for St. Louis, and Jordan Binnington had a season-high 43 saves.
The two teams played Monday in Las Vegas with the Blues winning 2-1 in overtime. St. Louis has now alternated wins and losses in its past eight games.
“Listen, we got a split with them,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “Disappointing tonight for sure at home. But we’ve got to go back on the road here. We’ve got back-to-back games, so we’ve got to focus on that.”
The Golden Knights scored four second period goals, including two on the power play, to take command. The first three goals came in less than three minutes of play.
Vegas got on the scoreboard first 8:03 into the game when Whitecloud scored his first goal of the season, finding the top corner for the goal. The Blues now are 1-11-1 when allowing the first goal in a game.
St. Louis then scored three goals to lead 3-1 going into the second period.
The Blues quickly tied it 1-1 when Neighbours scored at 9:20. Ivan Barbashev a former Blue, lost the puck in the neutral zone and St. Louis had a 2 on 1 advantage. Neighbours who skated in and snapped a wrist shot over Thompson for his 10th of the season.
The Blues went up 2-1 on a goal in front by Hayes at 10:33. From the corner, Torey Krug directed a shot toward the net and Hayes, who was just outside the crease, deflected it in for the goal.
Kyrou made it 3-1 when he scored at 17:11. Kyrou weaved his way through Whitecloud, Nicholas Hague and Barbashev and then beat Thompson. The goal snapped a 10-game goal drought that was the fourth-longest goalless streak of his six-year career.
But that was it for the Blues offensively.
“We got back to our game. We weren’t giving them speed entering our zone,” Kolesar said. “We were getting sticks in front of the puck before they could make plays. That’s how we were able to counter them.”
The four-goal second period put Golden Knights ahead.
Eichel scored from the top of the slot at 9:42 for his 12th goal of the season. That gave Eichel four goals in his last four games.
Marchessault, who earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, then scored his 12th goal of the season on a power play with 8:09 left in the second after getting a between-the-legs, no-look pass from Karlsson. Marchessault has three goals and one assist in the last three games.
Kolesar tipped a shot by Brayden McNabb past Binnington to give Vegas a 4-3 lead with 7:42 left, and Amadio had a power-play goal with 18 seconds remaining int he period.
Vegas had eight power-play opportunities to three for St. Louis.
“Obviously I thought we took too many penalties in the game,” Berube said. “I think that was one of the biggest problems. It was hard, a lot of killing, burnt out a lot of guys tonight.”
Karlsson’s empty-netter with 12 seconds left in the game capped the scoring.
UP NEXT
Golden Knights: At Dallas on Saturday.
Blues: At Columbus on Friday night.
