Anze Kopitar passes Wayne Gretzky on Kings’ assist list in loss to Golden Knights
Jonathan Marchessault had two goals and an assist in the Vegas Golden Knights’ 6-3 victory over the L.A. Kings on Tuesday night.
Reilly Smith and Chandler Stephenson each added a goal and an assist as Vegas returned from the extended Christmas break to push its road winning streak to six games. Keegan Kolesar and Mattias Janmark also scored, and Laurent Brossoit made 24 saves.
Golden Knights assistant Steve Spott ran the bench, with coach Peter DeBoer in virus protocols.
Jonathan Quick was pulled early in the second period after allowing five goals on 15 shots for the Kings, who had not played since Dec. 19 after their previous three games were postponed because of the NHL’s ongoing issues with COVID-19.
Anze Kopitar passed Wayne Gretzky for second place in career assists with Los Angeles. Adrian Kempe, Trevor Moore and Alex Iafallo scored, and Garret Sparks made 11 saves in relief.
Stephenson buried a one-timer from the slot on the power play 1:21 into the second for a 4-1 advantage, and Janmark scored at 2:47 to bring Quick’s night to an early end.
It was the second straight start in which Quick allowed five goals, following a 5-1 loss at Carolina on Dec. 18.
Vegas took a 3-1 lead out of a frantic first, when all four goals were scored in a span of 1:16 midway through the period.
After shutting down for a week, NHL play resumes Tuesday. The league is bringing back taxi squads while announcing three more games have been postponed.
Smith tipped in Marchessault’s pass for a power-play goal to get the Golden Knights on the board at 9:53, and Kolsesar redirected Ben Hutton’s slap shot from the left point to make it 2-0 just 26 seconds later.
It took another 13 seconds for Kempe to get the Kings within 2-1. He chased down Drew Doughty’s stretch pass that caromed off the boards to bury a one-timer from the slot.
Kopitar had the secondary assist, his 673rd with Los Angeles to break a tie with Gretzky. The Great One had an astonishing 672 assists in 539 games for the Kings.
But then Marchessault was able to backhand in William Karlsson’s shot that struck the post to restore a two-goal margin with 8:51 remaining in the period.
Marchessault got his second 1:55 into the third. It was his third multigoal game this season.
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