Marner hat trick fuels Knights 6-3 win

Mitch Marner drove the offense, and the Golden Knights finally made Calgary crack.

Marner scored a hat trick and added two assists as Vegas pulled away for a 6-3 win over the Flames on Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena. The victory pushed Vegas to 2-0 under John Tortorella and kept the Knights within three points of first place in the Pacific.

Fast start, wrong finish

Vegas did a lot right in the opening period, but one mistake still left it chasing.

The Golden Knights came out with pace and created chances right away. Marner and Jack Eichel pushed the attack, Mark Stone nearly jammed one through at the crease, and Pavel Dorofeyev kept testing Dustin Wolf from good spots. Vegas had the jump. It just did not have the lead.

Then Calgary made the first clean strike count.

A turnover turned into an odd-man rush, and Morgan Frost took his time before beating Carter Hart for a 1-0 lead. That was the difference in the period. Vegas carried long stretches, but Wolf stopped everything he saw and the Flames cashed in on the cleanest mistake of the frame.

Hart, making his first start since January, helped keep the game from drifting. He settled in after the goal and made several key saves late in the period.

Marner keeps answering

The second period opened up, and Marner took over.

He tied the game early by getting to the net and deflecting Shea Theodore’s shot past Wolf. It was a direct goal and the kind Tortorella wants more of as Vegas keeps leaning into a faster, north-south style.

“We just stuck with our game plan of trying to play quick, play up the ice,” Marner said. “Play in their face.”

But Calgary kept finding the same opening. Blake Coleman restored the lead on a two-on-one, another rush chance that exposed the aggressive side of what Vegas is trying to become.

Marner answered again, finishing a clean setup to make it 2-2. Then Calgary struck one more time, with Coleman scoring again to put the Flames back in front 3-2.

That could have been the point where the game tilted away. Instead, Vegas stayed with it.

Dorofeyev stops the slide

Late in the second, Marner kept a puck alive at the blue line and fed Dorofeyev, who hammered home a power-play goal to tie it 3-3. It was Dorofeyev’s 35th goal, matching his career high.

That response mattered. Vegas had spent two periods getting burned on broken plays, but it kept pushing the game forward.

Tortorella liked the intent, even if the details still need work.

“We’ve emphasized so much as far as checking forward, playing aggressive, moving the puck forward, pressuring,” he said. “I’d rather coach a team that’s overaggressive than trying to get a team to play aggressive.”

That line explained the night. Vegas was not always clean, but it kept playing north and kept giving itself another chance.

Delay, then separation

The third period started late after a lengthy delay and took a few minutes to settle.

Tortorella said the challenge after the stoppage was simple. “It’s a find-a-way league,” he said. “You’ve just got to find a way to win a period.”

Vegas did more than that.

Once play settled, the Golden Knights took over. Brett Howden gave Vegas its first lead of the night when he found space in the slot and snapped home Theodore’s pass at 12:20.

Howden said the key after the delay was keeping things simple until the legs came back.

“I thought we did a good job of playing simple early after sitting around for that long and getting it behind them,” he said. “Then as the period went on, we started to find our game.”

A few minutes later, Marner drove the next one too. Wolf misplayed the puck, Marner pushed it toward the net, and Ivan Barbashev buried the rebound to make it 5-3.