Avalanche shut out by Fleury, Golden Knights in return to play

LAS VEGAS -- Marc-Andre Fleury made 30 saves for the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Colorado Avalanche were shut out in their first game since Feb. 2, 1-0 at T-Mobile Arena on Sunday.

"Feeling it in the legs right now," Fleury said after his third start in four days. "It was fun. Fun to get some wins and fun to beat a good team today."
Max Pacioretty scored for the Golden Knights (10-2-1), who won for the fifth time in six games and are 8-1-1 at home. It was the first of a four-game set between Vegas and Colorado, including the Bridgestone NHL Outdoors Saturday game Feb. 20 at Lake Tahoe.
"It's one of those ones where they're going to have good legs but might not be good with the puck," Pacioretty said. "They played a stronger game than us. We were able to hold down the fort, especially [Fleury] keeping them off the board."

Philipp Grubauer made 23 saves for the Avalanche (7-4-1), who had five games postponed due to NHL COVID-19 protocols. They were 4-0-1 in their five games prior to the postponements.
Vegas will host Colorado again Tuesday.
"We were missing our legs a bit," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "We didn't have the extra pop in our legs. Our minds are in the right place, we just didn't execute the way we're capable of."
Pacioretty scored on a wrist shot from the right face-off circle for the only goal of the game at 1:38 of the second period.
Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo led the Golden Knights in ice time (25:53) alongside partner Alec Martinez (24:28). They spent most of that time defending the Avalanche's top forward line of Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Brandon Saad.
Pietrangelo was on the ice for 18:16 of MacKinnon's 22:34.
"They're going to get chances, right? They're good players, they generate stuff," Pietrangelo said. "The important thing is limiting those chances. I think we did a good job, for the most part, making them defend."

The Avalanche were without defenseman Cale Makar because of an upper-body injury and forwards Gabriel Landeskog and Tyson Jost, and defenseman Samuel Girard (COVID-19 protocols).
Bednar said he's hopeful Makar could return Tuesday.
"They have a great team," Saad said. "They check well so it's tough to get our momentum going, get our legs going. [It] seems like we had our chances, but we [had] a lot of one-and-dones."
Fleury made 10 saves in the third period and has not allowed more than one goal in his past three starts. He is 7-1-0 this season and is two wins shy of 100 with the Golden Knights (98-51-14).
"We've got to get [Fleury] some rest and get him ready for Tuesday," DeBoer said.
NOTES: It was Fleury's second shutout of the season. … Golden Knights goalie Robin Lehner missed his third straight game because off an upper-body injury. Oscar Dansk served as Fleury's backup. … Saad played his 600th NHL game, and Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin played his 300th. … Colorado was 3-for-3 on the penalty kill and is 38-for-42 (90.5 percent) this season, which leads the NHL. … The 13 games to reach 10 wins are the fewest in Golden Knights history; they needed 16 in their inaugural season (2017-18). ... Vegas has scored two goals at 5-on-5 in the past 183:56.