The San Jose Sharks have officially played their first game of the 2023-24 regular season, falling 4-1 to the defending Stanley Cup Champion Vegas Golden Knights.
It’s great that Sharks hockey is back in full swing, but their season opener went about as I had expected it would go all along. Early on in the opening period, Kyle Burroughs and Keegan Kolesar dropped the gloves and engaged in a decent tilt after Burroughs laid a solid clean hit on Michael Amadio. Later on in the first period, Amadio scored to put the Knights on the board, while the Sharks responded with Filip Zadina’s first goal in teal, assisted by Henry Thrun and Tomas Hertl.
The Golden Knights retook the lead late in the second period on goals from Nicolas Hague and Nicolas Roy, while Brayden Pachal sealed the deal early in the third period for Vegas to prevail 4-1.
Kaapo Kahkonen was given the start in net for the Sharks’ season opener, recording 28 saves in the loss.
In addition, William Eklund and Thomas Bordeleau made the Sharks’ opening night lineup, and their further development is one of the biggest things I am looking forward to this season for the Sharks. Team Teal's most recent waiver claim, Ty Emberson, also made the big-league roster but was a healthy scratch along with Nikolai Knyzhov and Kevin Labanc. On the other hand, Oskar Lindblom, Ryan Carpenter, and Jacob Peterson were a few notable names that will be starting this season in the AHL with the Barracuda. San Jose was without its captain Logan Couture to start the 2023-24 season, as he is currently week-to-week with a lower-body injury that was sustained during training camp.
It also went about how I expected it to in the fact that the Golden Knights are fresh off of winning the Stanley Cup last season and the Sharks are rebuilding, creating plenty of mismatches. This is only the start of a tough eight-game stretch for the Sharks to kick off their 2023-24 season, with their next game on Saturday against the Colorado Avalanche at 7 pm PT.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App
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