TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Marc-Andre Fleury made 28 saves, David Perron had a goal and an assist, and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 Thursday night in a matchup of conference leaders.
James Neal, Nate Schmidt and William Karlsson also scored for the Golden Knights, who swept the two-game season series with the NHL-leading Lightning.
Tampa Bay, coming off its bye week, got a goal from Ondrej Palat, and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 26 shots. Vasilevskiy, an All-Star this season, has allowed 19 goals over his last four games.
Fleury made a number of impressive stops, including a left-circle shot by Steven Stamkos and in-close chance from Nikita Kucherov during the second period. The goalie, who spent most of career with Pittsburgh, is 19-11-4 against the Lightning.
Neal opened the scoring with a nifty deflection 56 seconds into the first, and Schmidt made it 2-0 with 3:57 left in the period. Deryk Engelland got his 100th NHL assist on Neal’s goal.
Vegas is 19-1-0 when scoring first, with the lone loss coming Oct. 30 to the New York Islanders.
After Palat got a power-play goal midway through the second, Perron put the expansion Golden Knights up 3-1 late in the period.
Karlsson got his 24th goal 18 seconds into the third.
NOTES: Neal has 11 goals and 19 points in 18 games against Tampa Bay. … Palat stopped a 21-game goal drought. … Lightning D Dan Girardi, hit on the back of the neck by a slap shot Jan. 7 against Detroit, was back in the lineup. … Golden Knights C Cody Eakin played after sitting out one game with an undisclosed injury.
UP NEXT
Golden Knights: Play at Florida Friday night.
Lightning: Play the first of eight straight road games Saturday night at Minnesota.
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