Lehner returns, makes 23 saves for Golden Knights in win against Kings

LOS ANGELES -- Robin Lehner made 23 saves for the Vegas Golden Knights in his first game since Feb. 7, a 4-2 win against the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center on Friday.

Lehner missed 17 games because of a concussion before backing up Marc-Andre Fleury in a 5-4 win against the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday.
"Everybody on our team played a strong game tonight, and Robin obviously included," Golden Knights forward Max Pacioretty said. "It's not easy to come back after such a long time off, and he kind of picked up and fit in right away, which is nice to see."

Pacioretty scored two goals in 2:36 in the first period, and Alec Martinez had two assists for the Golden Knights (21-6-1), who won their fifth straight game.
Mark Stone had an assist for Vegas to extend his personal point streak to 10 games.
Alex Iafallo and Trevor Moore scored for the Kings (12-11-6), who have lost three of four. Jonathan Quick made 29 saves in his first start since March 6 because of an upper-body injury.
"We played hard enough and long enough to stay in the game but just loose enough to lose it," Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said. "… We were the second-best team, for sure."
William Karlsson redirected Jonathan Marchessault's shot from the point to put the Golden Knights ahead 3-2 at 15:15 of the second period. It was the 200th point with Vegas for Karlsson, who played following a false positive test earlier in the day that led to him being briefly being placed on the NHL COVID-19 protocol list.
"We found out in enough time to get him, thankfully the hotel's close, to get him over here and ready for warmup," Golden Knights coach Peter DeBoer said. "It was close and it's a stressful day, both for him waiting to see if it's a real positive or a false and all the close contacts that have been around him because it affects everybody."
William Carrier scored his first goal of the season at 10:34 of the third period to make it 4-2, tipping Nicolas Hague's shot from the point.
"We were very poor in about 40 square feet of ice in front of our net, whether it was tip-ins, deflections, pass-outs from below the goal line," McLellan said. "Just loose, sloppy."

Moore tied the game 2-2 at 6:18 of the second period. Matt Roy's shot from the blue line hit Golden Knights forward Alex Tuch before going in off Moore's stick.
"We take a punch or two to the face, and then we get ourselves off the mat, we continue to battle," McLellan said. "And now that's in our game, that's in our DNA. That's a moral victory. I think we're a better team than we played tonight. I think we showed 'em a little too much respect and disrespected what we're capable of doing."
Pacioretty gave the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead on a one-timer off a pass from Stone at 10:17 and scored with a backhand to make it 2-0 at 12:53. Video review determined Quick caught the puck over the goal line for the second goal.
"We got back to the bench, a couple guys mentioned that you could tell on video," Pacioretty said. "Every angle I saw, I couldn't tell, but they were pretty adamant about it. That being said, I didn't want them to jinx it."
Iafallo chipped in the rebound of Anze Kopitar's shot with 18 seconds left in the first to cut it to 2-1.
"We talked about it before the game, it's definitely a big game for us," Iafallo said of playing Vegas. "We got to win those ones. I feel like we had some good moments, but we had some bad moments that we've got to fix tomorrow, and we just have to go from there and stay positive."
The teams will complete a two-game set here Sunday.
NOTES: Stone had two goals and eight assists in a four-game point streak March 1-6 before missing a 2-0 loss to the Minnesota Wild on March 8 with an undisclosed injury. He has four goals and four assists during his current six-game point streak. … Defenseman Shea Theodore had an assist on Pacioretty's second goal to extend his point streak to six games (two goals, seven assists). … Iafallo has four points (two goals, two assists) during a personal four-game point streak, including a goal and two assists in the past three since he missed a 2-0 loss at the Colorado Avalanche on March 12 because he was ill. … The Kings used 11 forwards and seven defensemen. McLellan said it was a coach's decision and not based on player availability.