Saad has goal in return to St. Louis, Schmid makes 22 saves for Vegas
Golden Knights at Blues | Recap
ST. LOUIS — Braeden Bowman scored his first NHL goal for the Vegas Golden Knights in a 4-1 win against the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center on Saturday.
Bowman, an undrafted free agent, made his NHL debut on Thursday against the New York Islanders.
“It’s really a dream come true,” Bowman said. “The guys have been awesome. Just supporting me the whole way. Super proud to get that moment tonight.”
Brandon Saad, Noah Hanifin and Tomas Hertl also scored for the Golden Knights (8-4-5), who were 0-2-2 in their previous four games. Akira Schmid made 22 saves, and Reilly Smith and Pavel Dorofeyev each had two assists.
“The offense is getting spread out,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Usually when that happens, good things will happen as well because that’s kind of been our trademark when we go well is everyone contributes.”
VGK@STL: Bowman cashes in on power play for first NHL goal
Philip Broberg scored, and Joel Hofer made 29 saves for the Blues (6-9-4), who lost 6-5 in a shootout to the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday.
“I don’t think it’s high. And it shouldn’t be because we haven’t earned the right to have confidence because we’re not playing with enough desperation and with enough urgency,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “And we need to correct that, and we will.”
Saad’s first of the season in his first game against the Blues since being waived by St. Louis last season at 12:52 of the first period made it 1-0 after Matthew Kessel’s giveaway and shot from the slot.
“I feel like I’ve been chomping at the bit here the last few games, so it’s nice for it to go in,” Saad said.
Bowman’s power-play goal at 14:58 made it 2-0 on a one-timer off a quick pass from Dorofeyev to the crease.
“Guys are happy for him; he’s a nice guy,” Cassidy said of Bowman. “They’ve all been through it, so they know how important (the first NHL goal) is. They were cheering him on for sure.
“The power play, let’s face it, it hasn’t been as clean as it was earlier [in the season], and we knew that with Mark Stone out of the lineup, but at the end of the day, we still have lots of good players. It should be better than what it’s been, so that’s good. We probably could have had a couple [power-play goals] tonight. Real nice play on the first one to extend the lead. Now they’ve got to play some catch-up on a back-to-back where things aren’t going well for them. I thought it was very timely as well.”
Hanifin’s first of the season 36 seconds into the second period extended the lead to 3-0 on a shot from the blue line.
“They came out, got an early goal,” Blues defenseman Justin Faulk said. “The life on the bench and the group definitely, to be honest, there wasn’t a ton. It kind of got drained after that. Ultimately, kind of played the rest of the game on auto pilot, it seemed.”
Hertl scored on a breakaway at 11:20 of the third period to make it 4-0 after the Blues fumbled the puck at the offensive zone blue line.
“We wanted to get a good start on the road,” Saad said. “We knew they played last night, so for us, it was just having good details out there and getting on the puck.
VGK@STL: Hertl extends lead and point streak with breakaway goal
Broberg ended Schmid’s shutout bid when he scored at 15:57 for the 4-1 final on a shot from the point.
NOTES: Hertl has scored in three straight games. … Saad had just one goal in his previous 32 regular-season games. … St. Louis went 18:36 between shots on goal from the first to second periods. In that period, Vegas had the next 15 shots and scored three goals. … The NHL announced prior to the game that linesman Brad Kovachik was unavailable due to injury; the game was handled by three officials.
Hockey News