Alex Tuch scored with 15.9 seconds remaining in overtime as the Vegas Golden Knights earned the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference of the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a 4-3 a round-robin victory over the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday afternoon at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
Tuch came down the left side on a two-on-one with Alec Martinez and then fired a wrist shot from the middle of the left circle that beat Philipp Grubauer on his glove side for his third goal of the playoffs. Vegas will face the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Jonathan Marchessault scored two goals, Nicolas Roy scored a goal and Shea Theodore added two assists for Vegas (3-0-0, 6 points). Robin Lehner had 32 saves.
J.T. Compher had a goal and an assist and Nathan MacKinnon and Joonas Donskoi also scored goals for Colorado (2-0-1, 5 points). Nazem Kadri and Mikko Rantanen each had two assists and Grubauer finished with 22 saves for the Avalanche.
Colorado claimed the second seed and will face the Arizona Coyotes in the first round.
Following a scoreless first period that saw the Golden Knights kill off a 5-on-3 power play over the last 1:28, Vegas took a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal by Marchessault on a redirect of a Theodore shot. The sequence came after MacKinnon picked up an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for complaining about an icing call.
MacKinnon made up for his penalty with his 12th career playoff goal, backhanding in a rebound of Kadri's shot, while Ryan Reaves was in the penalty box for roughing.
The Golden Knights went back in front, 2-1, when Roy knocked in a puck during a goal-mouth scrum. But the Avalanche came back to tie it less than two minutes later when Donskoi tapped in a loose puck by the right post after a shot by Compher.
Marchessault was then awarded a penalty shot early in the third period after being tripped on a breakaway by Ryan Graves. Marchessault circled in from the left side and then fired a wrist shot past Grubauer's glove side than caromed in off the right post.
The Avalanche pulled Grubauer with 2:33 remaining and Compher tied it with 1:02 to go, knocking in a rebound of a Kadri shot that had hit the crossbar and landed behind Lehner in the blue paint.
--Field Level Media
