Mark Stone gets Golden Knights past Avalanche in OT for pivotal Game 5 win
The Daily Goal Horn
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Mark Stone scored 50 seconds into overtime, and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 in overtime of Game 5 of their West Division second-round series in Denver on Tuesday night.
“I had a couple big shot blocks right before that,” Stone said. “Sometimes when the D-man shoots it like that, they get flat-footed. Just took off, fortunate to end the game.”
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Alex Tuch and Jonathan Marchessault also scored and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 28 shots for the Golden Knights, who lead the series 3-2 following their third consecutive victory.
Game 6 is Thursday night in Las Vegas.
Golden Knights take 3-2 series lead over Avs
Brandon Saad and Joonas Donskoi scored for the Avalanche, who squandered a 2-0 third-period lead. Colorado goalie Philipp Grubauer made 22 saves.
The Avalanche took their first home loss since March 27, a defeat that also came against Vegas in overtime. Colorado had won 13 straight in Denver.
Colorado had the first chance in overtime and controlled the puck in the offensive zone. Stone blocked a shot, and then he broke in ahead of the defense. He came in on Grubauer and beat him high to the glove side.
It was his fifth goal of the playoffs.
Saad gave Colorado the lead in the final seconds of the first period on his seventh goal of the playoffs.
He got the puck at the red line with 5.6 seconds left, carried it into the Vegas zone and then let fly with a snap shot that beat Fleury over his right shoulder with 1.8 seconds left.
The Avalanche extended the lead in the second period. Alex Newhook fed Donskoi in the slot, and the right winger’s one-timer beat Fleury in the top left corner at 16:28 of the period.
The tally was Donskoi’s third of the postseason.
Golden Knights one more win away from advancing
The Golden Knights got right back into it at the start of the third period. Nicolas Roy forced a turnover by Andre Burakovsky in the Colorado zone and got the puck to Tuch coming down the middle. Tuch settled it down and flipped the puck just by Grubauer at 1:03 of the period for his fourth goal of the playoffs.
“You’ve got the Presidents’ Trophy-winning team on the other side,” Vegas coach Peter DeBoer said. “You look at the numbers, they’re one of the best teams in the last 10 to 15 years from a regular-season point of view. There’s going to be push and pull, and I thought we did a great job. It wasn’t always perfect, but it was a great win, and our guys really dug in and found a way.”
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Vegas struck again three minutes later on an odd-man rush. William Karlsson took the puck to the slot and slid a pass to Marchessault, who tipped it over Grubauer at 4:07. It was Marchessault’s sixth of the playoffs.
“We showed tonight that we can play with Vegas and create the chances we need and still defend properly, and we made some mistakes,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “Now we’re in the situation we’re in and we got to dig in and try to better that performance and go get the job done.”
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–Field Level Media