Golden Knights hold off Bruins, extend season-opening point streak to 5

LAS VEGAS -- William Karlsson scored two goals, and the Vegas Golden Knights held off the Boston Bruins for a 6-5 victory at T-Mobile Arena on Thursday.

Jack Eichel and Pavel Dorofeyev each had a goal and an assist, Mark Stone had three assists, and Akira Schmid made 19 saves for the Golden Knights (3-0-2), who have won two straight and are on a five-game point streak to open the season.

“The offense was really good,” Vegas forward Tomas Hertl said. “We finally got to the netfront, find some goals. Obviously, we've been talking about it a lot. Even last year, we had a couple of great leads and we should have put them away, but we got Boston back in action. It just can happen. We're such a good team, but we have to keep learning from them. It was a better game offensively.”

Michael Eyssimont had a goal and an assist, and David Pastrnak also scored for the Bruins (3-2-0), who have lost consecutive games. Jeremy Swayman made 31 saves.

“That's not us,” Boston coach Marco Sturm said. “I don't want to play that [high-scoring] game. I'm a defensive mindset coach, I would say, and it starts from there. Offense will come anyway, but you don't have to cheat the game.”

Tanner Jeannot gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead at 2:05 of the first period, hammering home a rebound from Charlie McAvoy’s shot from the half wall.

Dorofeyev tied the game 1-1 just 90 seconds later at 3:35, scoring on a breakaway off an entry pass from Mitch Marner in the neutral zone.

Nikita Zadorov put the Bruins back in front 2-1 at 16:44 when his point shot deflected in off Vegas defenseman Jeremy Lauzon.

Cole Reinhardt tied the game 2-2 at 18:33, scoring on a loose rebound off Ben Hutton’s shot from the blue line.

“We don't have very many of those on slot recovery, and that's a good way to get a second chance as you get a goalie maybe moving,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “[We have to] be harder to win the slot battle offensively. Good for Cole for being there. Good for Ben for having a shot mentality.

“Happy to see us get some of those tonight. We've got to build that into our offensive game.”

Eichel gave the Golden Knights their first lead of the game, 3-2, at 4:14 of the second period when his shot deflected off Morgan Geekie’s stick and fluttered into the top right corner of the net.

Hertl pushed it to 4-2 at 6:35 when he crashed the netfront and poked the puck toward the far post on the power play.

“We had some chances to try to score some goals, but eventually we got some good luck if you get to the net and find some rebounds,” Hertl said. “I wasn't even sure. I was actually surprised [Dorofeyev] missed that because he's always scoring those goals now, but now I just try to get to the net, fight, and it ended up in the net.”

Pastrnak cut it to 4-3 at 8:15 with his own power-play goal, scoring on a wrist shot through traffic from the inside of the left circle.

“A lot of mistakes today,” Pastrnak said. “We had a lot of breakdowns that end up in our net. We had an amazing kill. ‘Sway’ was standing on his head. We have to be better as a team. We showed fight back. That's pretty much the only positive from tonight's game.”

Karlsson scored a short-handed goal at 18:24 to make it 5-3. He tapped in Stone’s shot that went off the crossbar on a 2-on-0 breakaway.

“You just got to stop at the net and see where it bounces,” Karlsson said. “It was the right place at the right time.”

Karlsson scored again at 2:19 of the third period, making it 6-3 on the power play.

Mark Kastelic cut it to 6-4 at 4:05, scoring with a wrist shot after Sean Kuraly won a face-off. Eyssimont scored 67 seconds later at 5:12 to make it 6-5.

“They did their job,” Sturm said of the fourth line. “They played in there the whole time because they went behind them and they worked. That's what we talked about before the game. We only had one line, and that was the problem.”

NOTES: Eichel has a five-game point streak and leads the NHL with 11 points (five goals, six assists). It’s the most points by a Golden Knights player through the team’s first five games of a season. … Stone leads the NHL with nine assists. … Dorofeyev is tied for the NHL lead in goals at six with Shane Pinto of the Ottawa Senators.