Subban gets first victory of season, Golden Knights defeat Kings

LOS ANGELES-- Malcolm Subban got his first win of the season when the Vegas Golden Knights ended the Los Angeles Kings' season-long four-game winning streak with a 4-1 victory at Staples Center on Saturday.

Alex Tuch and Paul Stastny each had a goal and an assist for the Golden Knights (22-15-4), who have won two straight. Subban, who was 0-5-0 in six games this season, made 30 saves.
Anze Kopitar scored, and Jonathan Quick made 28 saves for the Kings (15-21-3), who were 4-0-1 in their prior five games.
WATCH: [All Golden Knights vs. Kings highlights]
Los Angeles won two games against Vegas this season, 5-1 here on Dec. 8 and 4-3 in overtime on the road Sunday.
"They were on a heater lately, so we wanted to show we could come in here and beat them," Subban said. "Obviously last year we did pretty well against them, including the playoffs. Being down 0-2, we felt like we needed to finally get a win against them, and we're glad to get it sooner than later."
The Golden Knights have a point in five straight games (3-0-2) and nine of their past 10 (6-1-3).

Vegas made it 2-1 at 12:26 of the second period by capitalizing on a Los Angeles turnover in its zone. Stastny fed Tuch for a one-timer from the right circle. It became Tuch's sixth game-winner of his 13 goals this season.
"They were good on the forecheck tonight," Kopitar said. "They were quick, and we certainly didn't move the puck as well as we did the past few games, but I mean, it happens. Saying all of that, it was a one-goal game going into the third and we couldn't get it done."
William Karlsson made it 3-1 at 3:20 of the third period scoring on a breakaway off a stretch pass by Nate Schmidt, who had an assist for a third straight game.
Ryan Reaves scored at 7:06 of the third period, but the call on the ice was overturned when the Kings successfully used a coach's challenge for goaltender inference.

Stastny scored an empty-net goal to make it 4-1 at 17:28. He has seven points (four goals, three assists) in eight games, including three multipoint games, since returning from a lower-body injury that caused him to miss 30 games.
William Carrier put the Golden Knights up 1-0 at 4:55 of the first period by redirecting Cody Eakin's shot over Quick, who was screened by Ryan Carpenter.
Kopitar tied it 1-1 with five seconds left in the period tapping in a shot by Sean Walker for his 299th NHL goal.
"It certainly resonates, but at the same time you have to have a short short-term memory," Kopitar said. "If we go 4-1, 4-1, 4-1, I'll take that, so we'll see where that takes us."

They said it

"The mentality hasn't changed. It's easy to preach, hard to do sometimes. When you're down 2-0, you play more aggressive. When you're up 2-0, you kind of sit back. But the games where we've been up we haven't sat back and we kept bringing it to them. Today was just good to do it on the road." -- Golden Knights center Paul Stastny
"I don't think you can just shrug it off. We're certainly going to look at some stuff, what we did wrong, what we did good. The big thing is now we can't let this one turn into two and three and four." -- Kings captain Anze Kopitar

Need to know

Vegas was the last NHL team to get a win from a second goalie. Marc-Andre Fleury had all of its 21 prior wins. ... Stastny has 34 points (13 goals, 21 assists) in 41 games against Los Angeles. ... Kopitar has seven points (two goals, five assists) in his past nine games, including a three-game point streak (one goal, two assists). ... Kings forward Alex Iafallo had an assist, giving him 10 points (four goals, six assists) in his past nine games. ... Vegas placed defenseman Colin Miller (upper body) on injured reserve Saturday. ... Los Angeles activated defenseman Dion Phaneuf from injured reserve Saturday. Phaneuf missed his seventh game since sustaining an upper-body injury against the Buffalo Sabres on Dec. 11.

What's next

Golden Knights: At the Arizona Coyotes on Sunday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN+, SN, TVAS, FS-A, ATTSN-RM, NHL.TV)
Kings: At the Colorado Avalanche on Monday (8 p.m. ET; ALT, FS-W, NHL.TV)