LAS VEGAS (AP) — Vegas' Pavel Dorofeyev's 6-on-5 goal with 52.7 seconds left gave him the sixth playoff hat trick in franchise history and forced overtime Wednesday night between the Golden Knights and Utah Mammoth with the teams tied at 4 in Game 5 of their series.
The teams are 2-2 in the opening-round best-of-seven series.
Utah rallied in the third period when Dylan Guenther tied it at 5:54 on a rush play and Michael Carcone on a 2-on-1 with 7:18
left.
John Marino, Lawson Crouse and Guenther also have scored for the Mammoth and Clayton Keller has two assists. Karel Vejmelka has made 19 saves.
Pavel Dorofeyev had two goals in 13 career playoff games before this one. Also for the Golden Knights, Shea Theodore has a goal and assist and Jack Eichel has two assists. Carter Hart has stopped 22 shots.
Both teams have continued to struggled on the power play, combining to go 1 for 8. Vegas ended a scoring drought of 13 power plays when Dorofeyev scored from the right circle to make it 1-1 with 40.2 seconds left in the first period. But the Golden Knights are just 3 for 17 for the series, which is better than Utah's 1-for-13 showing.
The Golden Knights twice rallied in the first two periods, and goals 1:38 apart by Dorofeyev and Theodore late in the second put them ahead 3-2. It's the first time Vegas took the lead into the third period in this series, but the Golden Knights were the NHL's best third-period team in the regular season with a plus-47 goal differential.
But both teams have been resilient — and physical.
They combined for 68 hits, each side determined to assert itself. But those also sometimes resulted in unnecessary penalties, with the Mammoth taking three in the first period on an open-ice interference by Nick Schmaltz, a clothesline takedown of Ivan Barbashev by Logan Cooley officially called holding and a boarding minor on Mikhail Sergachev.
The Golden Knights were hardly blameless. Cole Smith picked up a double-minor high-sticking penalty just 11 seconds into third period, but Vegas killed off the four minutes.
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