Golden Knights defeat Avalanche, end four-game skid

DENVER --The Vegas Golden Knights ended a four-game losing streak with a 3-1 win against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Tuesday.

"We needed a win," Vegas coach Peter DeBoer said. "We've been putting in some pretty good work. We had an opportunity to win a couple of the last few games in the third period and didn't do it. We needed one. Really short bench in the third and a lot of tired guys, but guys dug deep and really proud of the effort."
Chandler Stephenson had a goal and an assist, and Robin Lehner made 26 saves for Vegas (2-4-0).
"Big one for Robin," DeBoer said. "Robin's been really solid, but he needed to get rewarded with a win and he needed some goal support, and we haven't given him that. He got both of those tonight."
Cale Makar scored, and Darcy Kuemper made 26 saves for Colorado (2-4-0), which has lost four of its past five games.
"We're sort of stumbling and bumbling along right now, so there's a level of concern," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "It's not like, 'Well we just didn't play good tonight and (we're) moving on to the next (game).
"To me, this is a big game because part of what we talked about today was that if we win tonight and we're able to get to .500, now we can start (moving) above .500 if we do our job. If you lose, you drop two games back, and now we'll see how long it takes us to get back (to .500). It could be seven days, it could be 10 days, it could be a month."
Stephenson gave the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead at 2:00 of the first period, scoring with a backhand after Brayden McNabb's point shot was blocked in front.
"It's huge, you always want to start that way," McNabb said. "I thought we started great. It was great to get that goal, but we played very well with our systems and details. It's something to move on from and use it to our advantage going forward."

Reilly Smith made it 2-0 at 9:37 of the first with a shorthanded goal. He knocked the puck away from Makar at the blue line, skated in on a breakaway, and held off J.T. Compher before scoring with his backhand for his first of the season.
"That's on me," Makar said. "I didn't give us enough space. I started moving down, I don't know why. When [Compher] tapped it to me, I gave myself a little separation from their forward in the zone, tried to make a play and it winds up in the back of our net."
Makar cut it to 2-1 at 19:23 of the second period, shooting from above the face-off circles after receiving a pass from Nathan MacKinnon during a 4-on-4.
"There's no panic at all," Makar said. "We're [six] games in and we could win the next [76 games]. Obviously, that's probably not going to happen, but at the end of the day, you can think like that. Slow starts happen and we just have to build off it as a team. It just builds character. We move on and learn from our mistakes. We'll find a groove here."

Evgenii Dadonov scored an empty-net goal with 30 seconds remaining for the 3-1 final.
"It was a gutsy effort," DeBoer said. "Tough building, great team. We committed to defending hard and you need to against that team. We got some timely saves and a couple of big goals. Good formula for us."
Said Stephenson, "We played really good defensively. That's Vegas hockey, how we played tonight. Taking their time and space away and making smart plays. About time the whole game came together."
NOTES: Golden Knights defenseman Daniil Miromanov, who was playing in his second NHL game, had the secondary assist on Stephenson's goal for his first NHL point. … MacKinnon has six points (one goal, five assists) in a four-game point streak. … Colorado defenseman Jack Johnson was given a game misconduct and a major penalty for interference on Keegan Kolesar at 18:45 of the second period. Johnson also received a fighting major after being instigated by Vegas forward Nicolas Roy, who was assessed a 10-minute misconduct on the play.