Shea Theodore scored the game-winning goal in overtime, and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Utah Mammoth 5-4 in Game 4 on Monday night to even their first-round series at 2-2.
Vegas had to survive a frantic finish to get there. Pavel Dorofeyev appeared to have won it with 9:38 remaining in overtime, but the goal was waved off for offside on the play. Theodore then finished it with less than a minute remaining, sending the Golden Knights back home with the series tied after they entered the night trailing 2-1.
The game swung back and forth after Vegas raced out to a 3-0 lead in the second period. Nick Schmaltz and Ian Cole answered about 30 seconds apart for Utah, and Michael Carcone then scored his first career playoff goal early in the third period to tie the game. Clayton Keller later pushed the Mammoth ahead 4-3 when the puck went off Theodore and in, but Brett Howden scored his second goal of the game at the 10:25 mark in the third period to pull Vegas level again.
That set up a tense overtime in which the Golden Knights thought they had closed it out before the wave-off changed everything. The result mattered because Vegas was facing elimination pressure after losing Game 3 and falling behind in the series, and the series now shifts back to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for Game 5 on Wednesday night.
For Theodore, the goal was the defining moment in a game that kept changing hands until the final minute. For the Golden Knights, it turned a night that could have pushed them to the brink into one that reset the series and gave them home ice for the next game.
