The Toronto Maple Leafs let a dream start slip away in the desert on Thursday night, falling 4-3 to the Vegas Golden Knights in a shootout at T-Mobile Arena after building a 3-0 lead in the opening 8:37. Rookie Trevor Connelly scored in the fifth round of the shootout and Adin Hill denied John Tavares to seal Vegas's third consecutive victory.
Toronto looked unstoppable early. Jack Roslovic opened the scoring just 34 seconds into his 600th career NHL game — the 300th point of his career — before Easton Cowan finished a breakaway at 3:20 and Nick Paul made it 3-0 at 8:37. But Mark Stone's full-blast slapshot at 17:36 of the first period swung the momentum, and Vegas never looked back.
The Golden Knights poured it on in the second. Brett Howden tapped in a Mitch Marner feed at 1:12, and Jack Eichel — who also assisted on Stone's goal — tied the game on a penalty shot at 3:58. Vegas outshot Toronto 43-24 on the night, including a 21-8 edge in the second period, though the Knights went 0-for-4 on the power play.
A scoreless third period and overtime sent the game to a shootout. Braeden Bowman scored for Vegas and Kirill Marchenko was Toronto's lone successful shooter before Connelly beat Sergei Bobrovsky with a backhand-forehand move. Hill finished with 21 saves and stopped four of five Toronto attempts, while Bobrovsky made 40 saves to steal the Leafs a point. Toronto (2-2-1) visits Colorado on Saturday; Vegas (4-1-0) hosts Los Angeles.
