Credit: AP Photo/John Locher
By: Pearl Allison Lo
It took until the third stanza for the San Jose Sharks to get a lead, but they came back to stop the Vegas Golden Knights’ 12-game home point streak and seven-game overall point streak with a 3-2 win at T-Mobile Arena Thursday night.
The Sharks became the third fastest team to hit 1,000 wins.
Birthday boy goalie Martin Jones (29) made 36 saves to support his team. “We just stuck with it,” said Jones before his birthday song broke out. “Our game got better each period,” echoed captain Joe Pavelski.
Vegas had early goals to start the first and third and outshot the Sharks heavily to begin the first and second, but San Jose scored the only goal of the second on five shots and grinded it out in the third.
Win-wise, it was a four-game streak versus a seven-game streak and the shorter one won. If the Knights had won, they would have tied their franchise record for eight straight wins. Vegas’ longer streak had last been broken November 16, in terms of regulation wins at home.
In terms of the contest (last year the Knights won 6-0), it was a different story, but in 2019, the beginning was similarly written. San Jose fell behind early again. It started with a turnover and the rebound from Ryan Reaves’ shot from the left faceoff circle went right to Tomas Nosek on the other side at 1:34.
The Sharks also went shotless from 2:35 to 12:26, versus nine shots for the Knights, until Tomas Hertl broke out with two shots in four seconds. During the shotless time though, San Jose kept Vegas shotless on their power play.
Marcus Sorensen had a wide open net for the Sharks, but missed and was then tripped by Brayden McNabb at 15:11.
The second period started similarly as the Knights had a 7-0 shot advantage (three on the power play) until Evander Kane got San Jose’s first with 12:22 left. Three of those shots though, did come on the power play. The Sharks’ Brent Burns hit the goal post with 10:53 left and Vegas’s shot advantage stretched to 11-1 until Hertl things turned around with San Jose’s second shot of the period at 14:04.
#48 then went far side to make it 1-1 as he used Nate Schmidt to block Marc-Andre Fleury’s point of view.
Jon Merrill moved the Knights back up 2:16 into the third. It was his first goal in 54 games, since two years ago.
The Sharks re-tied the game when Burns blasted the puck before the blue line, and kind of like Vegas’s first goal, Melker Karlsson picked up the puck and potted it in net at 7:24.
Not too long after, Hertl corralled the puck behind the net before shooting and then there was a scramble that went on with the loose puck finding its way back to Hertl. He shot again and the puck went off Joonas Donskoi to give San Jose their first lead. That was Donskoi’s fourth goal in three games.
The Knights hit the goal post with 10:30 left.
With a tight contest, both teams did not help their cause, with Fleury creating a delay of game penalty at 13:54, during which Vegas utilized the empty net and shortly after, Brenden Dillon committing a slashing penalty.
Logan Couture hit the goal post of the empty net right as time expired. There was some discussion after about clock time, but then the game was confirmed over.
Up Next: The Sharks now head back home for two games, starting with Erik Karlsson’s former team, the Ottawa Senators, Saturday night at 7:00 pm.
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