Vegas Golden Knights: No happy reunion despite Max Pacioretty hat trick
There was to be no happy reunion for Alex Pietrangelo on Tuesday despite Max Pacioretty‘s hat trick.
Last night marked the first time that Alex Pietrangelo had faced his former team the St. Louis Blues since signing a blockbuster seven-year, $61.6 million contract with the Vegas Golden Knights in Free Agency, but it wasn’t a reunion to remember as the Blues won in a Shootout despite the fact that Max Pacioretty recorded the seventh shutout of his career.
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It must have been an emotional night for Pietrangelo who spent 12 long years with St. Louis, four as Captain, recording 450 career regular-season points (109 G, 341 A), while playing a huge role in the franchise finally claiming their first Stanley Cup in 2018-19. However, while he would have had the chance to catch up with some old friends, he failed in his ultimate mission as the Golden Knights suffered their second loss of the year.
However, it was a huge win for the Blues who are now 4-2-1 on the year and are second in the West, and it is expected that St. Louis, Vegas and the Colorado Avalanche will slug it out for the Division so it is advantage Blues early on given that they have beaten both the Knights and the Avs in the opening couple of weeks of the 2020-21 season.
Max Pacioretty’s seventh career NHL hat trick not enough for Vegas Golden Knights
And last night’s game was a tantalizing sign of what’s to come when these heavyweights meet, with an action-packed first period setting the tone for what was to come. Alex Tuch recorded his third goal of the year at 3:17 to give the Golden Knights the lead, who had General Manager Kelly McCrimmon behind the bench with Head Coach Peter DeBoer and the rest of his coaching staff held out due to a COVID-19 exposure among that group.
David Perron, who was a member of the “Golden Misfits” that helped Vegas make a stunning run to the 2017-18 Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural year, had something to say though and he scored back-to-back goals to flip the game on its head, before veteran Jaden Schwartz made it a two goal game with one hell of a wrist shot.
That was it for a crazy first period and Max Pacioretty’s first goal of the game early in the second stopped the Blues charge, although Jordan Kyrou actually forced a turnover off his old teammate in Pietrangelo before scoring on a breakaway to make it a 4-2 game.
The Pacioretty show really began to take over in the third period, however, with the veteran going top-shelf with an absolute snipe on the power play before he finished off a beautiful passing move between Mark Stone and Alec Martinez to tie it at four. It was the forward’s seventh career hat trick and his first with the Golden Knights, and all three goals just further hammered home how pure a goalscorer and shooter Pacioretty is.
But, despite Pacioretty’s heroics, it wasn’t enough for the Golden Knights as Perron, who seems to love scoring against his former team, and Brayden Schenn scored in the shootout, while Shea Theodore was the only player to convert for Vegas. It was a big win for the Blues and a tough one for the Knights, who are now 5-1-1 on the year.
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And it was a tough night for Alex Pietrangelo who did record an assist and a +1 rating while logging a monster 28:57 of TOI, but he gave up a costly turnover in the offensive zone and then couldn’t get back in time to prevent his former teammate in Jordan Kyrou from lighting the lamp on a breakaway. That wouldn’t have been how the veteran defenseman would have envisioned how his first game against his old team would have panned out, and it wasn’t the happiest of reunions given that the Vegas Golden Knights were unable to finish the job after coming back from a couple of goals down. However, Alex Pietrangelo is still finding his feet in Sin City and he’ll have plenty of opportunities to get revenge over the St. Louis Blues this season.