LAS VEGAS — Marc-Andre Fleury made 27 saves and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the New York Rangers 4-2 on Tuesday night for their seventh straight victory.
Fleury, who leads the NHL with 25 wins and 39 starts this season, has 429 career victories and is eight shy of tying Jacques Plante for eighth place.
Cody Eakin, Brandon Pirri, Jonathan Marchessault and Ryan Carpenter scored for the Golden Knights, who once again moved into a first-place tie with Calgary in the Western Conference. Both teams have 58 points.
The Golden Knights, who improved to 15-3-3 at home, are 19-4-3 overall since Nov. 18, when Nate Schmidt returned to the team after serving a 20-game suspension for violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy.
Vegas owns the NHL’s longest active home point streak (10-0-2) since Nov. 23, matching the 12-game home point streak it accomplished last season.
Vegas Golden Knights center Brandon Pirri celebrates (AP Photo/John Locher)
Mika Zibanejad and Jesper Fast scored for the Rangers. Backup goalie Alexandar Georgiev stopped 27 shots but has allowed nine goals in his last two starts.
New York has been outscored 22-5 during a four-game losing streak.
Though the Rangers have earned at least one point in 10 of their past 13 games against Western Conference opponents, the last three games of their four-game skid came on the road at Colorado, Arizona and Vegas.
Vegas opened the scoring when Alex Tuch chipped a pass backward to Eakin, who flew through the neutral zone and beat Georgiev on a breakaway for his 13th goal of the season. Tuch extended his point streak to seven games (two goals, six assists) and leads Vegas with 34 points.
The Golden Knights extended the lead to 2-0 when Max Pacioretty’s slap shot from the circle trickled through Georgiev’s pads, clanked off the post and landed in perfect position for Pirri to tap it in. Pirri, recalled on Monday, has seven goals in eight games for Vegas.
Pirri’s power-play goal snapped Vegas’ 0-for-17 slump with the man advantage, a drought that spanned seven games.
After Deryk Engelland swatted the puck from Fleury’s crease, Marchessault picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone and skated in on a breakaway to beat Georgiev top shelf and give the Golden Knights a 3-0 lead late in the second period.
The Rangers ruined Fleury’s bid for a seventh shutout this season, and 55th of his career, when they executed a rush perfectly for a backdoor one-timer by Zibanejad to make it 3-1 with 8:17 left.
The goal snapped Fleury’s scoreless streak at 134:46. Fleury has 68 career shutouts overall — 54 in the regular season and 14 in the playoffs — and the team he has the most against is the Rangers (seven).
Carpenter had an empty-net goal before Fast scored with 23 seconds remaining.
NOTES: Vegas top-line forward Reilly Smith was placed on injured reserve shortly before the game. … The Rangers dropped to 5-1-0 on Tuesdays. … New York forward Jimmy Vesey played in his 200th game. … Rangers G Henrik Lundqvist, selected for his fifth All-Star Game, is one appearance from tying Plante for 12th place on the career list with 837.
UP NEXT
Rangers: Host the rival New York Islanders on Thursday night.
Golden Knights: Host the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.
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W.G. Ramirez, The Associated Press
