Pastrnak's Shootout Winner Sinks Vegas After Stunning Third-Period Comeback

Vegas clawed back from two goals down to force overtime, then watched David Pastrnak end it in the shootout with a wrist shot that gave Boston a 3-2 final. The Golden Knights did everything right for 40 minutes of regulation except win.

Boston looked in control from the jump. James Hagens snapped one past Carter Hart at 7:23 of the first — his sixth of the year, set up by Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov — and that early margin felt like it mattered. The Bruins doubled it early in the second when Morgan Geekie buried his third of the season at 3:23, with Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak picking up assists. Vegas was down two, and the story of the night looked like it was writing itself in Boston's favor.

Then Mitch Marner happened. The Vegas winger didn't score, but he was the engine behind both Golden Knights goals. Mark Stone converted a wrist shot at 14:58 of the second — Marner's 14th assist on the season — to cut it to 2-1. Then, at 7:23 of the third, Trevor Connelly wired home his fifth of the year off another Marner feed (assist No. 15), and just like that it was 2-2. Marner finished with two assists and two points on the night, and it appears he's the reason this game even went to extra time. Carter Hart, for his part, held the fort with 25 saves on 27 shots — a workmanlike performance that kept Vegas alive long enough to tie it.

Jeremy Swayman stopped 21 of 23 for Boston, and the two-goal cushion his team built should have been enough. It wasn't — until Pastrnak made sure it was. The shootout winner, a wrist shot in the fifth round, closed it out at 3-2 and handed Boston the extra point. Vegas will look at this one and feel the sting: Marner was brilliant, Connelly and Stone each found the net, and Hart gave them a chance. But a two-goal deficit is a tough hole to dig out of, and the Golden Knights only barely managed it before falling short when it counted most. The turning point, structurally, was Hagens' first-period opener shifting the margin from zero to one — Boston never trailed in regulation, and that early lead looks like it set the tone for everything that followed.