- Brett Howden scored short-handed at 5:28 of 2OT to give Vegas a 5-4 Game 5 win
- Pavel Dorofeyev tied it with 53 seconds left to complete his first playoff hat trick
- Read below for the Marner setup, Howden’s “blacked out” quote, and Game 6 details
Brett Howden has no real memory of the goal that won Game 5.
The Vegas forward scored short-handed at 5:28 of the second overtime to lift the Golden Knights past the Utah Mammoth 5-4 on Wednesday at T-Mobile Arena. Vegas now leads the first-round series 3-2.
Mitch Marner did the dirty work first. Killing off a Reilly Smith high-sticking minor, Marner got his stick on a puck along the right boards and pried it loose. Howden grabbed the rebound, stepped into the right circle, and snapped a wrister past Karel Vejmelka.
“I kind of blacked out there,” Howden said. “Mitch did a really good job. It’s like the other night on PK. He did a good job of getting a stick in there, interrupting the play. Just kind of popped out, and I tried to get a shot.”
It was Howden’s third overtime winner of his career, the most in franchise history. He’s the only player with more than one. He’s also just the second player ever to score a short-handed winner in a multi-overtime game since the NHL started tracking goals by type in 1933-34. Tomas Hertl was the other, in Game 6 of the 2019 first round.
None of it happens without Pavel Dorofeyev.
Vegas trailed 4-3 with under a minute to go in regulation. Carter Hart was pulled, the Mammoth had Vegas pinned, and Dorofeyev found a loose puck in the blue paint and buried it with 53 seconds left to make it 4-4.
That was Dorofeyev’s first career playoff hat trick. He scored in all three periods: a late power-play goal in the first, a wrister from the slot to tie it 2-2, and the desperation equalizer that forced overtime.
“I was so fired up, and good things happen when you go to the blue paint,” Dorofeyev said. “We don’t quit on the game until the final whistle, and we always help each other and just believe.”
Shea Theodore added a goal and an assist. Jack Eichel chipped in two helpers. Hart finished with 34 saves.
Dylan Guenther, Lawson Crouse, and Michael Carcone scored for Utah. Clayton Keller had two assists, and Vejmelka stopped 31. The Mammoth head home down 3-2 after a similar OT thriller cost them Game 4.
Game 6 is Friday at Delta Center in Salt Lake City. Puck drop is 10 p.m. ET on ESPN.
