The Sharks looked great through the first two periods, but fell apart in the third as the Golden Knights stormed back to defeat the Sharks 5-4. San Jose remains winless through five games against Vegas this season.
Despite giving up the first goal of the game to Shea Theodore, the Sharks' defense and goaltending were pretty strong in the first two periods. The first period also featured a great hit by Radim Simek on Ryan Reaves. Team Teal had one of its best periods all season in the second where they scored three straight to take a commanding 3-1 lead through two periods. It all started by Matt Nieto off a pretty pass from Timo Meier at the 6:21 mark. Soon after, Mario Ferraro scores his first goal of the season, which could not have been set up any better. The third Sharks goal came at the 15:07 mark on Kevin Labanc's eighth of the season.
In between the Sharks' second and third goals in the second, Ryan Reaves nearly tied the game at two, but the goal was disallowed after William Carrier interfered with Devan Dubnyk's ability to make a save on that play.
The Sharks controlled the momentum in this game and looked like they headed for a huge win in Vegas until the first 15 minutes of the third period. Defensive woes, poor goaltending, and penalty trouble by San Jose led to four unanswered goals by the Golden Knights, specifically by Cody Glass, Nicolas Hague, Ryan Reaves, and Alec Martinez. Evander Kane gets a goal back for the Sharks with about four minutes remaining, but San Jose was unable to salvage any more after that.
Tomas Hertl recorded two assists in this game and his first career fight in the third. His first fight occurred after Timo Meier took a blindside hit by Mark Stone that sent Meier into concussion protocol. This was Hertl's way of standing up for Timo by dropping the gloves and going after Mark Stone. It was certainly unusual to see those two players fight, but I applaud Tomas Hertl for sticking up for his teammates and not letting Stone's hit go unnoticed. What was even crazier was that in the same third period, Logan Couture dropped the gloves with Jonathan Marchessault, which marks the third fight of Couture's NHL career.
John Leonard substituted for Rudolfs Balcers in the Sharks lineup for this game and tallied an assist on Mario Ferraro's first goal of the year in the second. Evander Kane added two assists in addition to his late goal in the third. Mario Ferraro assisted on Labanc's goal in the second to make this his third career two-point game. Erik Karlsson got an assist on Evander Kane's late goal to round out the Sharks' scoring.
Devan Dubnyk was outstanding until he gave up four unanswered in the third, recording 32 saves. With the way he's been playing lately, I wouldn't be shocked if Dubnyk gets traded to a contending team before the trade deadline next month.
The Sharks and Golden Knights don't face each other again until three straight games on April 19, 21, and 23. I've basically accepted that the Knights are a step above the Sharks this season in nearly every aspect of the game. Despite getting swept in this miniseries in Vegas, the Sharks have been coming together and buying into the system, which I very much enjoy seeing. San Jose's next miniseries is their last miniseries against the Blues this season, which takes place Friday and Saturday at SAP Center. Each of their next two games start at 6 pm PT.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL app
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