Marchessault scores twice, Golden Knights hang on for 6-5 win over Jets

Dec 13, 2022 | 8:22 PM

WINNIPEG — Jonathan Marchessault’s second power-play goal late in the third period broke a tie and helped lift the Vegas Golden Knights to a 6-5 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday. 

The final minutes of the game were action packed, with William Karlsson adding an empty-net strike for Vegas with 1:24 left on the clock and Jets centre Mark Scheifele completing a hat trick with two seconds to go in the third.

Golden Knights’ captain Mark Stone scored twice Tuesday, while Daniil Miromanov put away his first NHL goal and contributed a pair of assists. Chandler Stephenson registered four helpers. 

Morgan Barron and Sam Gagner each had a goal for the Jets (18-9-1) and Connor Hellebuyck made 27 saves.

Adin Hill stopped 29 shots for the Golden Knights (21-9-1).

It was the first time the Jets have lost two consecutive games since a 5-2 defeat in Vegas on Oct. 20 and a 4-1 loss to Toronto at home on Oct. 22. 

The game featured the Western Conference’s division heavyweights, with Winnipeg going into the game atop the Central Division and Vegas leading the Pacific.

The two sides came into the third period with the score knotted at 3-3. 

Scheifele gave his side the advantage 41 second into the frame, putting away his second goal of the night on a power play. 

He took a cross-ice pass from Kyle Connor, going down on one knee and firing in the puck in for his team-leading 17th goal of the season. 

Marchessault levelled the game at 4-4 with his first power-play marker at 9:38 after Winnipeg’s Blake Wheeler headed to the box on a delay-of-game penalty. 

Marchessault put his team up 5-4 with another power-play goal 17:44 into the frame. 

The Golden Knights led 2-1 after the first period

Scheifele scored his first goal of the game when the puck bounced off him from a Josh Morrissey point shot at 9:22 of the first. Morrissey extended his point streak to six games and has six assists during that span.  

Just over two minutes later, Miromanov tallied his first career goal in his second season and 17th game with the Golden Knights. 

Stone provided the 2-1 lead with two seconds remaining in the period off a rebound from a Stephenson one-timer blast from the point.  

Vegas had the game’s first power play early in the second period, but only managed one shot on goal.  

Barron was rewarded for his effort with his third goal of the season. His first attempt at putting in a rebound hit the post, but he got a backhand on the puck and flipped it past Hill to tie it 2-2 at 11:16. 

Stone regained Vegas’s lead at 15:34 with his 12th of the season, but Gagner tipped in a Brenden Dillon shot 39 seconds later for the 3-3 tie. 

The result gave Vegas a sweep of the three-game season series, include one overtime victory. 

MISSING PIECES

Vegas was missing leading scorer Jack Eichel and defenceman Shea Theodore for a second straight game. 

Eichel, who has 29 points in 27 games, was placed on injured reserve Monday with a lower-body injury. He’s listed as day-to-day.

Theodore tops the team’s defencemen with 22 points in 29 games and is out week-to-week with a knee injury. Fellow defenceman Whitecloud is sidelined month-to-month with a leg injury, while veteran blue-liner Alex Pietrangelo is away indefinitely because of an illness in the family.

UP NEXT

Jets: Host the Nashville Predators on Thursday.

Golden Knights: Face the Blackhawks in Chicago on Thursday. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 13, 2022.

Judy Owen, The Canadian Press