EDMONTON -- Mark Stone sustained an upper-body injury in the first period and did not return in the Vegas Golden Knights' 4-3 win against the Edmonton Oilers in Game 3 of Western Conference Second Round at Rogers Place on Saturday.
Stone, a forward and the Golden Knights captain, is day to day, according to Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy. He took six shifts in the first and played 5:54.
Game 4 of the best-of-7 series, which Edmonton leads 2-1, is here on Monday (9:30 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TNT, truTV, MAX).
“We’ll see tomorrow how he’s feeling,” Cassidy said after the game. “Obviously he didn’t return, but it doesn’t preclude him from playing the next game, we’ll know more tomorrow.”
Stone’s final shift of the period lasted 34 seconds and concluded at 13:40. He has eight points (four goals, four assists) in nine Stanley Cup Playoff games, including four points (two goals, two assists) in the first two games of this series.
“We managed quite well it seemed, the guys wanted to pick him up,” Cassidy said. “What it does, it allows other players like a Reilly Smith to get more opportunity. He got more opportunity to play and he took advantage of it.”
Despite his absence, Vegas was able to battle back from a 2-0 deficit with goals from Nicolas Roy and Smith 54 seconds apart at 15:17 and 16:11 of the first. William Karlsson gave the Golden Knights the lead at 17:05 of the second period and Smith scored the winning goal with 0.4 seconds left in the third.
“You can’t replace a guy like Mark Stone, so the best you can do, by committee, is try to chip in and make up for not having him on the ice,” Smith said. “He’s a great player and he’s also a great leader in the locker room, so everyone just has to do a little bit more and I think that was our mindset for the rest of the game and we’ll see what happens for the rest of the series.”
It was unclear at what point in the first period Stone sustained his injury. On his third shift of the game, he fell in front of Oilers forward Corey Perry, who seemed to make contact with his left wrist skating by. Stone did return to play three more shifts before leaving the game.
“You never want to see anyone have to leave the game, especially a guy like him who leads us on the ice and in the room, emotionally,” Vegas defenseman Nicolas Hague said. “I know it’s definitely tough on him and tough on us too as a group. That’s definitely in the back of our heads when we’re out there. He wants to be out there more than anyone battling with us and it makes a win feel that much better that we were able to get one for him there.”
