Golden Knights score 4 straight, stay hot with win against Flyers

LAS VEGAS -- Mark Stone had a goal and an assist for the Vegas Golden Knights, who scored four straight times in a 5-2 win against the Philadelphia Flyers at T-Mobile Arena on Thursday.

Pavel Dorofeyev and Nicolas Hague also scored, and Jack Eichel and Noah Hanifin each had two assists for Vegas (26-9-3), which has won seven of eight. Ilya Samsonov made 23 saves.

“Our details and our stopping and starting slot battle weren't good enough in the first period,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We’re also at the point of the year where we are in the standings, some teams are looking at us and saying, ‘Hey, we're going into their building, we better be ready to play.’ I assume some teams are saying that.

“We have to own that. We've earned that respect around the League, but you've got to be prepared every night. You're not going to get too many easy passes, so that's what I feel has happened a little bit, and we weren't ready to start.”

Tyson Foerster and Travis Konecny scored for Philadelphia (17-18-4), which has alternated wins and losses over its past six games. Aleksei Kolosov made 22 saves.

“Our forechecking was good. We made some mistakes, but for most of the 60 minutes, I felt really comfortable how we were playing,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said. “I thought we did a lot of good stuff in the offensive zone as far as keeping the puck. The score doesn't indicate how the game was played.”

Foerster scored 21 seconds into the first period to give Philadelphia a 1-0 lead, tapping in a Noah Cates rebound.

“We've been playing well,” Foerster said. “We had a good start and we played well. So sometimes you don't get those bounces.”

Vegas then scored four consecutive goals to take a 4-1 lead.

Stone tied it 1-1 at 51 seconds of the second period, tipping in a centering feed from Eichel.

Hague put the Golden Knights ahead 2-1 at 2:13 with a wraparound goal.

Dorofeyev extended it to 3-1 at 18:22, roofing Shea Theodore’s pass from the right circle.

“There wasn't a ton going on in the first period, right? We gave up an early goal, not a great defensive play by us, but there really wasn't a ton going on in the first period for either side after that,” Stone said. “I thought we decided to kind of take initiative and get some pucks to the net and force their goalie to make saves, and we had a couple good plays in the second period to take the lead.”

Alexander Holtz pushed it to 4-1 at 2:46 of the third period with a wrist shot from the high slot.

“It was a big goal to get it to 4-1. When you can stretch the lead, it makes it that much more difficult for teams to come back,” Stone said. “That was kind of something that we didn't do in the [3-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday]. … I thought tonight we were able to get the lead to three with ‘Holtzy'’s goal. We really locked it down.”

Konecny’s power-play goal cut it to 4-2 at 4:56, but Tanner Pearson scored an empty-net goal at 19:24 for the 5-2 final.

“We don't want to sit back. I thought we did a good job.,” Hague said. “We were able to get the next one, and then one more after that. We were just good. I liked the way we finished the game.”

NOTES: Theodore recorded his 250th assist with the Golden Knights and became the first player to reach the mark with the franchise. … Stone’s goal was his 98th career goal for the Golden Knights and passed Max Pacioretty (97) for the fourth most in franchise history. … Samsonov recorded his 10th win with the Golden Knights in just his 14th appearance. The only goalies to do so in fewer games with the franchise are Robin Lehner (13 GP) and Malcolm Subban (13 GP).