Phil Kessel, Ivan Barbashev and Chandler Stephenson scored on consecutive shots over a 3:13 span early in a four-goal first period as the Vegas Golden Knights cruised to a 5-2 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday in Las Vegas.Stephenson added two assists while Kessel and Barbashev each wound up with two points for Vegas (49-22-8, 106 points), which extended its Pacific Division and Western Conference lead to three points over the idle Edmonton Oilers (47-23-9, 103 points). Both teams have three games remaining.The Golden Knights’ Nicolas Roy and Jonathan Marchessault also scored goals, and Laurent Brossoit made 30 saves to improve to 5-0-3 in eight starts this season.Anze Kopitar and Vladislav Gavrikov scored for Los Angeles (45-24-10, 100 points), which lost its second straight game. Joonas Korpisalo stopped 10 of 15 shots before being pulled after yielding Marchessault’s goal at the 1:02 mark of the second period. Pheonix Copley took over and finished with 22 saves.Los Angeles appeared to take a 1-0 lead on its first shot of the game when Kopitar fired the puck past a Quinton Byfield screen. However, that score was overturned when Vegas successfully challenged that the Kings were offside on the play.The Golden Knights then needed just 20 seconds to take a 1-0 lead on Kessel’s wraparound goal through Korpisalo’s pads at 2:54.Barbashev followed 62 seconds later with his 16th goal of the season to make it 2-0, one-timing a Stephenson pass from the bottom of the right circle.
Early 3-goal surge sends Golden Knights past Kings
