Knights top Avalanche in heavyweight showdown

Score round one for the Golden Knights in a fight between hockey heavyweights.

The Knights defeated the Colorado Avalanche 1-0 at T-Mobile Arena on Sunday in the first of four consecutive meetings between the teams. The matchup, featuring two West Division and Stanley Cup favorites, continues Tuesday, Saturday at Lake Tahoe and Feb. 22.

Left wing Max Pacioretty scored the Knights’ lone goal, and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury was brilliant playing for the second time in two days. He made 30 saves to earn his seventh win in eight starts and second shutout.

“I thought both teams played hard,” coach Pete DeBoer said. “It was a playoff-type feel to that game. 1-0 game. Goaltending, great at both ends. It was a good hockey game.”

The Knights (10-2-1), DeBoer admitted, entered the game “a little fatigued” playing for the sixth time in 10 days and coming off a 3-1 win in San Jose on Saturday. But the Avalanche (7-4-1) didn’t have their legs early either in their first game since Feb. 2 because they had three players enter the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols.

The two sides remained deadlocked until Pacioretty scored his seventh goal 1:38 into the second period. The play started with defenseman Zach Whitecloud retrieving a Colorado clearance behind his blue line. He spun and fired a bank pass to Pacioretty diagonally across the neutral zone, and the 32-year-old took the feed and beat Avalanche goaltender Philipp Grubauer short-side from the top of the right circle.

“Just trying to make good, smart plays with the puck,” Whitecloud said. “Obviously, you want to execute those things and make sure as a defenseman, with the forward group we have, you want to chip in and make their job easier.”

Grubauer stopped the other 23 shots he faced but was still outdueled by the game’s other goaltender. Fleury picked up his 63rd career shutout, one behinid Henrik Lundqvist for the 16th-most all-time.

The 36-year-old has had a heavy workload recently but has shown no ill effects. He has started four straight games with Robin Lehner nursing an upper-body injury, including both games of his team’s first back-to-back Saturday and Sunday.

Fleury improved to 5-0-1 with the Knights in the second game of a back-to-back after also playing the first. His .944 save percentage ranks sixth in the NHL this season and third among goaltenders who have played at least three games.

“(I’m) feeling it a little bit in the legs right now,” said Fleury, who made 24 saves in Saturday’s win. “But it was fun. It’s fun to get some wins here and beat a good team today.”

The Knights’ focus the next three meetings will be on giving their goaltender a little more margin for error. The Avalanche controlled possession, especially in the third period, and had more scoring chances at five-on-five. The Knights will look to change that when the series resumes Tuesday.

“They definitely played a stronger game than us and had a lot of opportunities to take advantage of us there,” Pacioretty said. “However, we were able to hold down the fort and especially (Fleury) being able to keep them off the board was important. But we have to know moving forward, we have to be much better, especially five-on-five.”

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.