Golden Knights show poise, discipline in Game 3 win in Western Final

DALLAS -- The Vegas Golden Knights had one thought when they saw their captain, Mark Stone, get tossed to the ice and take a cross-check directly into his neck less than two minutes into the first period.

"Make him pay," forward Nicolas Roy said.

"Him" is Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn, who did the cross-checking and took the punishment, a five-minute major and game misconduct at 1:53 of the first period. Vegas did make him pay, but on the ensuing five-minute power play, not by losing its cool and retaliating.

That kind of poise and discipline has a way of driving teams toward championships. The Golden Knights are one step closer because of it after throttling the Stars 4-0 in Game 3 of the Western Conference Final at American Airlines Center on Tuesday.

Vegas has a 3-0 lead in the best-of-7 series. Game 4 is here Thursday.

"We're upset when we see that, he's our captain, but at the end of the day they make a call that gives us a chance to make them pay for that penalty and we did with one goal, so we double our lead," Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. "The guys look at that as OK, we'll try to take a number, be hard against their skill but just do it the right way. That's been our mindset all along. Credit to the guys for having the discipline to do that because as you can see not everyone does that."

Dallas didn't, and Vegas took advantage. Really, it's all the Golden Knights could do to put themselves one win away from the Stanley Cup Final for the second time in six seasons.

It wasn't just their reaction to Benn's cross check on Stone either.

They started the game strong by taking it right to the Stars and getting a goal from Jonathan Marchessault at 1:11 of the first period to go up 1-0. It was only the fourth time in 14 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs that the Golden Knights scored first.

They're 4-0 in those games, 7-3 when they don't.

"Get a lead on the road, it always makes it easier to relax and play, not to chase the game," Cassidy said. "We've been doing a lot of that successfully, but it's not the formula you want every night."

RELATED: [Complete Golden Knights vs. Stars series coverage]

Ivan Barbashev capitalized on the Benn penalty, scoring at 5:57 to give Vegas a 2-0 lead.

The Golden Knights could sense the Stars were still reeling after Barbashev's goal, so they kept the pressure on, and William Carrier extended the lead to 3-0 just 1:13 later.

Carrier's goal gave Vegas three on five shots in 7:10, enough for Dallas coach Peter DeBoer to pull goalie Jake Oettinger and put in Scott Wedgewood.

"When you go up 3-0 those can be risky sometimes," Barbashev said. "Some teams may stop playing, but we kept pushing and we got another goal to make it 4-0. I think that was huge too."

That one came off another Stars mistake.

Alex Pietrangelo scored at 8:28 of the second period, one second after Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen was freed from the penalty box, where he was serving a minor penalty for interference on Golden Knights forward Reilly Smith.

The puck was gone and Heiskanen still drilled Smith into the boards to draw the penalty. It wasn't near as severe as Benn's cross-check on Stone, but again it was a situation where the Golden Knights did not retaliate, or intimate that was even a thought of theirs.

They took the power play, held the puck in the zone, and cashed in just as the penalty box door was swinging open.

"When some [bad] stuff happens we've got a lot of guys that are going to step up for one another," Barbashev said. "Those games, you've just got to let it go a little bit. We did a really good job of just focusing on the game."

Adin Hill did too. It's telling of the kind of night Vegas had as a team that it took this long into this story to even reference the goalie who made 34 saves for his first NHL postseason shutout. Typically, that reference would go in the first paragraph.

But Hill did his part before the Golden Knights made Benn and the Stars pay, and certainly after.

Hill's save on forward Ty Dellandrea on a short-handed 2-on-1 eight seconds before Barbashev scored his power-play goal was arguably the turning point in the game.

It's easy to look at Benn's penalty, Vegas' reaction and Barbashev's ensuing power-play goal as the big moments, but sandwiched in between was Hill's save that gave the Golden Knights a chance to make it 2-0 instead of giving the Stars momentum despite their captain's mistake.

"That 15 seconds of hockey has a huge impact in the game," Cassidy said.

Vegas had only six shots on goal in the final 40 minutes. Hill faced 23 and stopped them all.

He is 6-1 with a 2.06 goals-against average and .939 save percentage since replacing an injured Laurent Brossoit in the first period of Game 3 against the Edmonton Oilers in the second round. Hill has a 1.98 GAA and .942 save percentage in Vegas' five-game winning streak.

"He was outstanding, and he's been outstanding since he got in in Edmonton," Barbashev said. "He just makes the saves that keeps us in the game."

It's all the Golden Knights need when they're playing like they are, for each other with poise and discipline.