Stauber gets 1st NHL shutout, Utah Hockey Club cruises past Golden Knights

LAS VEGAS -- Jaxson Stauber made 29 saves for his first NHL shutout, and the Utah Hockey Club defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 6-0 at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday.

It was Stauber’s debut for Utah, his seventh NHL game and his first since Feb. 22, 2023, with the Chicago Blackhawks. He was recalled from Tucson of the American Hockey League on Nov. 20 with Connor Ingram out because of an upper-body injury.

“You know, I try not to think about [the shutout]. Just stay in that moment and keep playing the game,” Stauber said. “I'm trying to play simple, present a big target, get to my spots early and get hit with pucks.”

Nick Schmaltz scored his first two goals of the season, and Logan Cooley, Clayton Keller and Alex Kerfoot each had a goal and an assist for Utah (10-10-4), which lost 4-3 to the Edmonton Oilers on Friday.

“It's kind of tough playing those games when you get a big lead early, and, you know, they're going to have a pushback,” Schmaltz said. “But I thought we stuck with it. Our goaltender was great when we needed him. The penalty kill was good, and we locked it down pretty well defensively and kept making plays offensively, so it was a good sign for the group.”

Ilya Samsonov made 22 saves for Vegas (15-7-3), which had a five-game point streak end (4-0-1). The Golden Knights defeated the Winnipeg Jets 4-3 on Friday.

“We didn't execute well enough early on,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We mismanaged the puck in the first three goals in every position, so we ended up chasing the game. We can't chase the game in the National Hockey League. We'll catch it every once in a while. … It's not a good form of us, so we put ourselves in a bad spot.”

Utah scored four goals in the first period.

Keller made it 1-0 at 5:33, scoring from the left face-off circle after Barrett Hayton poked the puck away from Shea Theodore and passed to Keller to start the rush.

Kerfoot extended the lead to 2-0 at 9:26 with a short-handed goal after he intercepted Samsonov’s clearing attempt above the blue line and shot toward an empty net. A diving Samsonov got a piece of it, but the puck trickled in.

Schmaltz made it 3-0 at 10:35 with a one-timer from the left circle, and Cooley pushed it to 4-0 at 18:44, scoring on a redirection from the slot.

Michael Carcone scored on the rush to make it 5-0 at 1:02 of the second period with his first goal of the season.

“First three or four shifts was not really good, but then we scored first,” Utah coach Andre Tourigny said. ”That was good. Then the goal in the PK, I think, gave us some energy. ‘Schmaltzy’ scoring as well was good. Good to have ‘Schmaltzy’ get the monkey off his back. ‘Carci’ get the monkey off his back. I think those two guys are important point producers for us, so it was good for them.”

Schmaltz scored his second of the game on the power play at 5:28 for the 6-0 final, putting a wrist shot into an open net from the right circle.

“You just move on. Obviously look in the mirror a bit, right?” Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said. “We'll review a few things, why it happened. But we've got another [three games in four days] coming up (starting Tuesday), so it's a lot of hockey right now. Just got to get ready for Monday. We need a good practice on Monday.”

NOTE: Golden Knights forward Victor Olofsson returned from a lower-body injury that sidelined him for 20 games. He was minus-2 with no shots on goal in 16:54 of ice time. … Cooley extended his point streak to five games (three goals, five assists). … Kerfoot scored the first short-handed goal in Utah history.