Smith's two goals lifts Golden Knights over Flames

CALGARY -- The Vegas Golden Knights reached 100 points in dramatic fashion, following a 3-2 win in overtime over the Calgary Flames on Saturday at Scotiabank Saddledome.  

Forward Reilly Smith, with half a minute left in OT, found his second goal of the night from below the goal line. Smith comes around from behind the net and tries to center the puck to forward Brett Howden, but the puck goes off the skate of Calgary’s MacKenzie Weegar and off the right shoulder of goaltender Dustin Wolf.

"A bit of relief," Smith said. "I think we did enough in that game to win. Sometimes bounces don't go your way and teams claw back in. I don't think there was any real panic in this locker room at all throughout the game." 

On top of Smith’s performance, Theodore assisted on all of Vegas’ goals tonight. He now has 57 points (7 G, 47 A), which is the most by any Golden Knights’ defensemen in a single season.

Vegas has now won the first three matchups against the Flames this season including two home shutouts (5-0 & 3-0) before the new year. With their loss to Winnipeg on Thursday, the Golden Knights are 4-1 coming off being shutout the game prior. 

Vegas Golden Knights' head coach Bruce Cassidy made it a point post game that him and his team obviously wants to win the division for better playoff seating, but the most important thing is to get better heading into the home streak of the season. 

"Our guys are competitive. They like to win," Cassidy said. "It's important , but at the end of the day, [we need to] get our game in order and play better than we did the previous two nights."  

Once ahead by a point over the Los Angeles Kings , who are coming off a shutout victory over the Oilers and riding a four game winning streak, the Golden Knights went into this game knowing that they had to beat Calgary to stay ahead in the Pacific Division. 

Doing so, the Golden Knights jumped on the Flames right away and produced more high danger scoring chances and did not allow too many shots on Akira Schmid, who made his first start ever for Vegas. 

A little under two minutes before the end of the first period, Vegas was able to grab the lead first for the third time this season against Calgary following a goal by forward Pavel Dorofeyev. 

On Dorofeyev’s 33rd goal, Brandon Saad started the scoring push sending a pass to Dorofeyev, dropped it to Theodore. The pair crossed over, giving the puck back to Dorofeyev, who then goes backhand past the glove of Wolf. 

The Golden Knights had a great first two periods, getting shots on net, while also limiting shots on Vegas goaltender Akira Schmid. Vegas has outshot the Flames 22-15 and blocked 11 Calgary scoring chances. 

Smith would earn his first goal and extend Vegas’ lead at the halfway point of the game, deflecting Theodore’s shot coming from the point.  Cassidy described the Smith goal as a "playoff goal".  

Before the score, the Golden Knights’ second line, consisting of William Karlsson, Victor Oloffson and Smith, delivered a great shift. Getting on one knee, Karlsson won the face-off, straight to Olofsson’s stick, passed to Theodore leading to the Smith deflection.

"I thought they were our best line tonight," Cassidy said. "They've been working at it and they're communicating on the bench, so happy to see it go their way." 

It’s one of many shifts that the second line has produced multiple scoring chances and being able to stretch out long periods of time with possession of the puck. With the help of Olofsson’s 9 shots, this unit produced half of the team’s total shots (17).  

"I think we did a really good job finding space in the offensive zone," Smith said when asked about what he thought of his lines' performance. "It seemed like every time we were turning pucks over, we were finding someone open in the middle for a clean shot... Its just keeps on finding the right places and the right chances is probably the most important thing for us." 

Eight seconds before the final buzzer in the second period, the Flames’ Joel Hanley managed to cut Vegas’ lead in half, ending their seven period scoreless streak against the Golden Knights.

Less than a minute into the third period, Flames’ forward Matt Coronato scored his 21st goal of the season to tie the game and the final goal in regulation. 

In his starting debut, Schmid finished with 21 saves in net with a .913 SV%. The 24-year-old made a huge save on Mikael Backlund’s shot right before the end of the final period.

"I thought he played well," Cassidy said. "If he doesn't make that save at the end, we don't get points... He made the saves he needed to, when he needed to. So good for him. I'm happy for him."

The last time Schmid started in net at the NHL level was over a year ago in New Jersey playing for the Devils. After playing 30 games for the Henderson Silver Knights, Schmid finally was called on to his NHL return. 

"Tough, last year. it's been tough for me," Schmid said when asked how his last year was. "I just try to stick with it and grind it out, keep my game simple. This last couple of weeks, the game has really picked up and I feel pretty confident." 

The Golden Knights finished the night outshooting the Flames 34-23 and were flawless on the penalty kill going 4-for-4 down a man. 

The Golden Knights play their last game in their back-to-back tomorrow in Vancouver against the Canucks at 7 p.m. It'll be another big opportunity for the team to gain some separation from Los Angeles in the Pacific Division, who are trailing only by three points. 

"I think you try to get every edge you can going into playoffs," Smith said. "That's our mindset. Everything you can do to get a little bit of advantage in playoff rounds goes a long way."