Luke Evangelista had two assists, and Justus Annunen made 29 saves for the Predators (18-17-4), who have won five of their past six games. They are 12-5-0 since Nov. 26.
Pavel Dorofeyev had two assists for the Golden Knights (17-10-11), who have lost six of seven (1-4-2). Akira Schmid made 15 saves.
“When your game goes in the direction that you don’t want it to go, it’s up to the head coach to fix it,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “So, we’ll keep working on our defensive play. I think there was a stretch in the first period for eight minutes where we weren’t as good as we could be defensively. But again, it’s a game of what, four penalty kills, 19 shots against? It’s not like we’re breaking down all over the ice.”
Golden Knights forwards Mark Stone and Mitch Marner, and defenseman Shea Theodore were named to Team Canada’s roster for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 before the game.
Stone gave Vegas a 1-0 lead on a power play at 5:35 of the first period, tapping in a cross-ice pass from Dorofeyev.
Ben Hutton made it 2-0 at 9:06 on a redirection of Tomas Hertl’s slap shot.
“We came out early and played well,” Golden Knights forward Brandon Saad said. “Gave up a couple bounces, a couple goals. You kind of have to just stop the bleeding, get back to our game. It just seems like when we’re getting scored on, we’re kind of getting in those ruts. You see in the third we kind of got back to our game, but then it was too late.”
Nick Perbix cut it to 2-1 at 11:20 with a wrist shot from the point.
After Stamkos tied it, Reid Schaefer gave the Predators a 3-2 lead at 16:21 on a wrist shot from the left circle.
“You want to roll into a new year with some momentum, and we have,” Stamkos said. “Proud of the guys, and we’re looking forward to the next year.”
Michael Bunting scored at 11:52 of the second period on the power play on a redirection of a shot from the point from Nick Blankenburg. It was Bunting’s 10th goal of the season.
