Victor Olofsson scored the winning goal with 3:14 to play in the third period, lifting the visiting Vegas Golden Knights to a 3-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks in NHL action Sunday at Rogers Arena.
Ivan Barbashev and Nicolas Roy also scored for the Knights (47-22-8), while Nils Höglander and Aatu Räty replied for Vancouver (35-28-13).
Adin Hill made 20 saves to earn the goaltending win, while Kevin Lankinen made 32 stops in a losing cause.
With the loss, the Canucks remain eight points behind the Minnesota Wild, who hold the final Western Conference wildcard playoff spot. Vancouver has five games to play. Vegas has a five-point lead on the L.A. Kings in the battle for top spot in the league’s Pacific Division.
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Höglander opened the scoring 4:46 into the game, knocking in a rebound off a Pius Suter shot. Höglander now has seven goals on the season.
Less than four minutes later, Vegas tied things at 1-1 when Barbashev took a nice feed from Mark Stone, deked Lankinen and slipped home a backhand.
Roy gave the Knights a 2-1 lead at 13:15, when his shot was stopped by Lankinen but bounced in off defender Victor Mancini.
Räty evened things at 2-2 at 8:03 of the second period, jamming home a rebound off a Filip Hronek point shot for his sixth goal of the season.
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Olofsson’s winner came off a nice feed from William Karlsson, who carried the puck behind the Vancouver net and found Olofsson open in the slot.
The Canucks visit the Dallas Stars on Tuesday (5 p.m.).
NOTES: The Canucks were again without injured players Filip Chytil, Tyler Myers, Nils Åman, and Elias Pettersson… Vancouver fell to 2-8 in the second game of back-to-back contests this season… Both teams went 0-for-2 on the power play.
