Fleury, Knights shut down Blackhawks

Marc-Andre Fleury had 28 saves and Reilly Smith had a goal and an assist to lead the Vegas Golden Knights to a 5-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night in Las Vegas. Fleury was making his first start since Nov. 23 after taking a personal leave due to the illness and death of his father. He lost his shutout bid with just 27 seconds to go when Dominik Kubalik scored a power-play goal.

Deryk Engelland, William Karlsson, Max Pacioretty, and Ryan Reaves also scored goals for Vegas, which snapped a two-game losing streak. Corey Crawford finished with 32 saves for Chicago, which fell to 1-6-2 all-time against the Golden Knights.

After a scoreless opening 20 minutes, Vegas took control with three goals in the second. Smith got the first on a power play at the 7:27 mark, gathering in a rebound of Nate Schmidt shot on the right side of the net and then tucking it around Crawford for his team-leading 13th goal of the season. Engelland made it 2-0 less than four minutes later when he took a crossing pass from Alex Tuch in the right circle and fired a wrist shot past Crawford's blocker side for his first goal in 41 games dating back to March 6 against Calgary.

Karlsson then scored his first goal in 11 games with a short-handed goal, slapping in a drop pass from Smith, who had stolen the puck from Alex DeBrincat and then started an odd-man rush. Pacioretty increased the lead to 4-0 early in the third period when he tipped in a pass from Mark Stone into an open net at the end of a 2-on-1 for his 11th goal of the season. Reaves followed with his third goal of the season, one-timing a Paul Stastny set up from the middle of the right circle.

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