By Canadian Press

Max Pacioretty scores twice as Golden Knights best Vancouver Canucks 4-3

Nov 29, 2018 | 11:20 PM

VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Canucks dropped another game on Thursday night, but head coach Travis Green says his squad’s performance was one of their best so far this year.

“You’re playing a team that went to the Stanley Cup finals last year. I thought that was a very played game by our team and a lot of compete,” he said of the 4-3 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.

“It’s disheartening to lose right now, but I know when we go back and watch the tape, that’s one of the games that you played well and lost.”

The Canucks (11-14-3) have a single win in their last 11 match ups, while Thursday’s victory extends the Knights’ win streak to five games.

“That never-quit attitude has been there for our team has been there during this streak and we’ve seen how well we can play when we play the right way,” said Knights left-winger Max Pacioretty, who scored twice in the win. 

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The former Montreal Canadiens captain now has eight goals in his last seven games.

“It’s been a lot of fun but we have to keep going,” he said.

William Carrier also scored for Vegas (14-12-1) and William Karlsson potted the game winner, a short-handed marker with less than seven minutes to play.

Vancouver got a pair of goals from Brock Boeser and saw defenceman Alex Edler tally his first of the season. 

Jacob Markstrom stopped 27 shots for the Canucks and Marc-Andre Fleury made 33 saves for the Golden Knights.

Fleury celebrated his 34th birthday this week and was happy to be asked after Thursday’s game if he’s getting quicker with age.

“Thank you, I’ll take that,” the veteran netminder said. “They keep calling me old man. I don’t know, I just try to get in front of the puck as quick as I can. A little more smart so you can read better the play sometimes. I feel all right though.”

Fleury attributed his team’s winning streak to offence and a stable playing method.

“We’ve been scoring a lot of goals and that helps a lot always,” he said. “I think we have been playing consistently throughout the game, and game to game. I think we have been better at it and it’s been paying off.”

Vancouver started off strong on Thursday, keeping Vegas from registering a single shot before the Canucks opened the scoring nearly 10 minutes in.

Rookie Elias Pettersson picked the pocket of Vegas defenceman Nate Schmidt in front of the Knights net, then sent a no-look pass to Boeser from his knees.

Boeser got the puck in the slot and hammered a quick wrist shot past Fleury.

The right-winger struggled to find the words to describe the play after the game.

“I don’t know. It’s tremendous. Just for him to be on the ice … ” Boeser said, trailing off. “He told me on the bench that he heard me yelling, he didn’t know where I was. It’s a great play. I’m not surprised though.”

Pettersson said he hadn’t heard his teammate calling and that the pass was “a good guess.”

“I tried to go around the defender. I got tripped. Then I had a feeling that one of my teammates would be around that area so I just gave it a shot and it just went right on the tape,” he said.

The 20-year-old now has 22 points in his first 22 NHL games.

Thursday’s match was frustrating, Pettersson said, because the Canucks did enough to win.

“Of course I think we played really well,” he said. “Sometimes you lose games when you should have won and sometimes it’s the vice versa. I think we played one of our better games this year.”

Vancouver’s five-game homestand will continue Saturday afternoon when they host the Dallas Stars.

NOTES: The injury-riddled Canucks may be down two more men. Left-winger Antoine Roussel was scratched from the lineup shortly before Thursday’s game with what head coach Travis Green said was an upper-body injury. Defenceman Alex Edler went down hard late in the game after being hit by Vegas right-winger Ryan Reaves. Green said after the game that he’s concerned about Edler.

Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press