Golden Knights continue historic start, shut out Avalanche 7-0

The ice surface at T-Mobile Arena was being covered Friday night, because the Golden Knights don’t play at home for another two weeks.

But before heading back east, the expansion team equaled one more record on its way out of town.

Goaltender Oscar Dansk recorded a shutout in his second NHL start, and seven players scored for the Knights in their 7-0 thrashing of the Colorado Avalanche before an announced crowd of 17,702.

It was the fifth straight win for the Knights, matching the NHL record for longest winning streak by a team in its inaugural season. The New York Rangers (1926-27) and Edmonton Oilers (1979-80) are the only other franchises to manage the feat.

“This was our last game on the homestand, and we talked about ‘Let’s finish it off in style,’” Knights coach Gerard Gallant said. “I thought the guys played a complete game. They worked real hard in the third period, and they did the right things, and that’s why they scored some more goals in the third period, because they played the right way.”

Linemates Cody Eakin, James Neal and David Perron each produced a goal and an assist, as the Knights scored seven goals on 21 shots.

Jonathan Marchessault also had a goal and an assist, and Oscar Lindberg, Erik Haula and William Carrier added goals.

The Knights (8-1) are the fastest team to reach eight wins in its inaugural season since the league expanded in 1967-68, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The Los Angeles Kings and Philadelphia Flyers each earned their eighth win in 17 games in 1967-68.

“Obviously it’s fun to win games and have everyone contribute,” Lindberg said. “But it’s a long season, and we’re not trying to get ahead of ourselves.”

The Knights, who wore their white jerseys for the Nevada Day matinee, moved within one point of the Los Angeles Kings (17 points) in the Pacific Division standings.

They finished 6-1 on the homestand, including wins over Western Conference favorites St. Louis and Chicago, and outscored their opponents 30-17 in the seven games.

“All the homestands, you want to take advantage of it and we certainly did here,” said Dansk, who had 32 saves. “I can only speak for the time I’ve been here, but we were feeding off the crowd, too. The crowd has been amazing. It’s a lot of fun to play in this building, that’s for sure.”

The Knights were outplayed by Colorado (5-5-0) during the opening portion of the second period before erupting for four goals in a span of 9 minutes, 26 seconds.

Perron scored on a breakaway at 8:50, and the Knights got a break at 12:19 of the period to go up 2-0.

Lindberg stole the puck from Chris Bigras near the Avalanche blue line and fought off two defenders before chipping the puck over Semyon Varlamov’s glove for his fourth goal of the season.

Colorado challenged that Lindberg was offside on the play, but after review, the goal was upheld.

“I’m looking down at the camera, and from what I saw, the Colorado player pushed the puck in the zone, so that’s why it wasn’t offside,” Gallant said. “But they’re so close, and they’re so tough calls. Fraction of an inch.”

Eakin stuffed home a loose puck at 15:33 after Neal’s shot went wide and bounced back in front of the net, and Neal deflected Colin Miller’s blast from the point for his team-best seventh goal of the season.

“That’s how it has to be to keep going forward if we want to sustain success that way,” Perron said. “We have to make sure our defensive game like it was tonight stays the biggest part. We might talk about seven goals for, but I think it was our defensive play that created all those chances.”

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Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.