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Golden Knights beat Kings without 5 Olympians in lineup

Danny Webster, Las Vegas Review-Journal on

Published in Hockey

LOS ANGELES – The Vegas Golden Knights rolled out a roster that would’ve been suited for a preseason game.

It took a four-minute span to make that point completely irrelevant.

The Knights, trailing by one entering the third period, scored three times in 4:14 and five times overall and defeated the Los Angeles Kings 6-4 at Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday.

The first game back from the two-week Winter Olympic break was going to bring rust. It was going to provide some messy details.

But the Knights got goals from center Colton Sissons and wingers Brandon Saad and Reilly Smith to take a 4-2 lead at 12:21.

Pavel Dorofeyev scored twice, including the power-play goal to make it 5-3 with 4:01 left. Ivan Barbashev added an empty-net goal with 28 seconds left.

Goaltender Adin Hill finished with 15 saves, and the Knights (28-16-14) won their third straight game.

If there was ever a night where that wasn’t supposed to happen, this would’ve been it.

The Knights were without their five Olympians who played in Sunday’s gold medal game.

 

Canada’s contingent of captain Mark Stone, winger Mitch Marner and defenseman Shea Theodore remained in Las Vegas. Center Jack Eichel and defenseman Noah Hanifin have already been in Washington, D.C., after they joined some of their Team USA teammates at the State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Coach Bruce Cassidy said the hope is all five will join the team for Friday’s game against the Washington Capitals to continue their five-game road trip.

The five absences were noticeable. The Knights had a roster that resembled a exhibition game.

Expectation didn’t match the ice. They played a simple game. They didn’t turn the puck over at an alarming rate.

The Kings added two goals in the third period to keep it close thanks to winger Quinton Byfield and defenseman Brandt Clarke, but to no avail.

The Knights weren’t supposed to win this game. There was no business to do so. Yet this one will be one of the more memorable wins of the year.

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©2026 Las Vegas Review-Journal. Visit reviewjournal.com.. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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