Golden Knights defeat Stars in Game 2, extend Western 1st Round lead

Game 3 of the best-of-7 series is at Vegas on Saturday (10:30 p.m. ET; TBS, truTV, MAX, BSSW, SCRIPPS).

“I’ll go back to as recently as last year they were down 3-0 [in the series] and made it 3-2 in a hurry. I don’t think they’re going anywhere,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Our focus is more we’re going to talk about ourselves and not worry about how Dallas may or may not respond. They’re a good team, they’ll come ready to play. They’re a great road team. They may have the best road record in the NHL. If not, they’re right there. There’s going to be no gimmies in that regard, so it doesn’t matter where we play. We’re getting a strong opponent. We’ve just got to keep building our game.”

Robertson gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 16:47 of the first period on a shot from the top of the left face-off circle on the power play.

Marchessault tied it 1-1 at 18:09. Ivan Barbashev sprung Eichel on a breakaway with a stretch pass. Eichel drove down the slot to draw Oettinger out then backhanded a pass to Marchessault on his right for the shot into the open net.

“They’re the defending Cup champs for a reason. They know how to squeeze it out and finish a game off,” Robertson said. “It’s going to be a grind [to come back in the series], but everyone in here is going to be confident and ready to go.”

Hanifin gave Vegas a 2-1 lead at 18:53 in the second period when he corralled a rebound and shot it from the left face-off dot. It was Hanifin’s first career playoff goal.

“We didn’t sit back and let them control the play,” Hanifin said. “We checked really well, especially off the rush, we had really good gaps, good back pressure from our forwards. That’s where they’re dangerous is off the rush, and we kind of eliminated those chances. We were still trying to make plays and score goals [in the third], that’s what you want to do when you’ve got a lead.”