Knights win, set NHL record for road victories by expansion team
BUFFALO, N.Y. — As has been the case for most of their inaugural season, the Golden Knights seem to find a way to win. Especially if the game is close in the third period.
On Saturday, they were low on energy and trailing one of the NHL’s worst teams late in the game. But Deryk Engelland scored a fluke goal to tie the game, and Erik Haula notched the winning goal in the fifth round of a shootout to give the Knights a 2-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center.
It was the 20th road win for the franchise, eclipsing the NHL record of 19 set by the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 1993-94 for most road victories by an expansion team.
In typical Knights fashion, there was more relief than celebration.
“It’s two points, and that’s what we’re fighting for at this time of the season,” coach Gerard Gallant said. “It definitely wasn’t a pretty game for us. There wasn’t much emotion in the game. It was just two teams feeling each other out.”
Haula said: “It wasn’t one of our best games. That was pretty evident. You just have to find ways. If you hold a team under two goals, you should win the game.”
The Knights (44-19-5, 93 points) are 3-1 on the five-game trip, which concludes Monday in Philadelphia. It will be a night for potentially more milestones, as goaltender Marc Andre Fleury is expected to start and will be going for his 400th NHL career victory.
Fleury got No. 399 on Saturday before an announced crowd of 19,070 and against a team ranked 30th in the league in points.
“That was a hard game for us,” said Fleury, who improved to 24-9-3 this season. “There wasn’t a whole lot of energy out there, so you had to really concentrate.”
Fleury and Buffalo’s Robin Lehner were outstanding. The game was scoreless after two periods, which set up nicely for the Knights, who were 11-4-2 when tied entering the third period.
But they fell behind when Justin Bailey beat Fleury 2:47 into the third after Shea Theodore’s cross-ice pass at the Buffalo blue line was intercepted by Benoit Pouliot, who gave it to Bailey, who in turn finished with a nice backhand move.
Engelland’s goal with 4:14 left tied the score. He had trailed the play and took the puck around the Buffalo net and banked it off defenseman Marco Scandella’s body and across the goal line for his fifth goal.
“I was just trying to hold onto the puck and get it to the net,” Engelland said of the play, which was set up by nice work in the Buffalo zone by William Karlsson and David Perron.
Gallant juggled his lines midway through the second period, playing Perron with Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault while dropping Tomas Tatar to play with Haula and Tomas Hyka.
“We were looking for a spark, something to get us going,” Gallant said.
The Knights remained without left wing Reilly Smith, who normally plays with Karlsson and Marchessault. Smith missed his second straight game with an upper-body injury and was sent back to Las Vegas on Saturday for further evaluation.
Defenseman Nate Schmidt returned after missing four games with an upper-body injury. He started and played 25 minutes.
But there’s still several missing pieces. No James Neal. No Luca Sbisa. No Will Carrier or Oscar Lindberg. Yet the Knights keep managing to pick up points.
“Sometimes you’ve got to grind some out that way,” Engelland said.
Contact Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow @stevecarprj on Twitter.
Three takeaways
1. Juggling act works. Coach Gerard Gallant’s decision to move David Perron up to the first line and drop Tomas Tatar to the second line paid off, as Perron teamed with William Karlsson on Deryk Engelland’s game-tying goal in the third period and Tatar seemed to play with renewed purpose alongside Erik Haula and Tomas Hyka.
2. Sabres’ strong effort. Buffalo has had a horrendous season, but against the Knights, the Sabres skated and forechecked well and got clutch goaltending from Robin Lehner. And they did it without star center Jack Eichel and forward Kyle Okposo.
3. Opportunity wasted. The Knights had a great chance to win in regulation when the Sabres were whistled for delay of game with 2:14 left in a 1-1 game. The Knights are 1 of 10 on the power play through four games on the trip.
