Bruce Cassidy became the eighth active coach in the NHL to hit the 400-win mark on Thursday when his Pacific Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights held on for a 3-2 victory at Ottawa on Thursday. But the Ottawa native had little time to celebrate.
The Golden Knights jumped on a train for Montreal shortly after the contest and will continue a season-long five-game road trip against the resurgent Canadiens on Saturday night.
“It feels great,” Cassidy said of hitting the 400-win milestone. “You never know where your numbers are going to end up but I’m going to tell you that in this business I’m just worried about No. 401 right now.”
The win over the Senators was the second game of a back-to-back that began with the team’s first shutout loss since early January, 3-0, at Toronto on Wednesday. It was just the fourth road victory in 10 games (4-4-2) for Vegas, which improved 6-0-1 all-time at the Canadian Tire Centre.
Ilya Samsonov made 38 saves, including 16 in the final period when the Senators outshot the Golden Knights, 18-5, and Pavel Dorofeyev scored his team-leading 10th goal midway through the third period for what proved to be the game-winner as Vegas snapped a two-game losing streak.
“We managed to get it to the finish line,” Cassidy said. “That’s a good win for the team even though it got a little hectic there but you’ve got to find ways to win. There are no easy wins in this league, so good on the guys.”
Now the Golden Knights play a Montreal team that has won two straight and three of its last four games and is coming off an impressive 3-0 blanking of Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers on Monday. Sam Montembeault made 30 saves for his second shutout of the season, Jake Evans had a goal and an assist and Brendan Gallagher and Kaiden Guhle also scored to lead the Canadiens.
“I’m just really proud of the way we played tonight,” Montembeault said after posting his third career shutout. “The last few games we took a really good step in the right direction defensively and now we’ve just got to be more consistent with it.”
Montembeault is 3-1-0 with a 0.93 goals-against average and .966 save percentage and a shutout in his last four games.
Montreal outscored Columbus and Edmonton, 8-1, in the two wins but still has allowed an Atlantic Division-high 71 goals this season and is minus-17 in goal differential.
“The win was great,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “Obviously the result. But to me it’s how we won that galvanized the group. … To me, it’s how we did it, not so much the result. I feel, right now, we’re in a good place to reinforce the stuff that’s working.”
It will be the third game in four nights for the Golden Knights while Montreal is enjoying a rare four-day break. Montreal held team practices on three of those days.
“We should come out with some good energy (Saturday),” St. Louis said. “I think our start is (going to be) very, very important.”
–Field Level Media
