Golden Knights Make Sharks Green With Envy With Overpowering Third Period: VGK 5 San Jose 4 On St. Patrick’s Day Wednesday
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By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The Vegas Golden Knights were missing two of their top forwards — Alex Tuch and Chandler Stephenson — for a St. Patrick’s Day showdown with the San Jose Sharks Wednesday.
The offensive firepower was lacking in period one, but the Knights relied on two reliables this amended 56-game pandemic season — defenseman Shea Theodore powering home a laser shot from the point and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury shutting down the opponent. Fleury entered the game with a glittering save percentage of .936, allowing a measly 1.77 goals a game.
The Knights led, 1-0 after one period.
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During the warmup skate, the Golden Knights donned green jerseys, which were sale with the proceeds going to the Golden Knights Foundation.
Take a look.
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Lots of fans came ready in green.
Under the COVID-19 protocols that allow 20 percent fan attendance capacity in the venue, fans have designated times for entering the building.
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San Jose’s Matt Nieto, sitting uncovered in front of Fleury, took a pass from Timo Meier and re-directed the puck up and over Fleury to knot the game at one about six minutes into the middle stanza.
It’s a tight game with 13:13 left in period two.
The Sharks struck again. This time, Mario Ferraro notched the goal and the San Jose club led, 2-1, about eight minutes into period two.
The Sharks called for goalie interference when the Knights’ scored 11 minutes into the period and the refs agreed that VGK’s William Carrier was draped over Sharks goalie Devan Dubnyk. The score remained, 2-1, in favor of the Sharks until San Jose scored again to go up by two goals. Kevin Labanc was credited with the score.
The Sharks led, 3-1, and were taking over control of the game midway through the second period.
After two periods, Sharks 3 Knights 1
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The Knights picked up the juice in period three to tie the game at three.
First, the VGK capitalized on a too-many-men-on-ice penalty on the Sharks to cut the deficit to one when Cody Glass did some dirty work in front of Dubnyk to steer in a power-play goal to make it, 3-2, Sharks.
Then, the Original Misfits line of Marchessault-Karlsson-Smith pressured the Sharks with Marchy feeding Nic Hague with a center-point blast that beat Dubnyk.
It was Sharks 3 Vegas 3 midway through period three.
The period also featured two fights — Mark Stone vs Tomas Hertl and Jonathan Marchessault vs Logan Couture.
The Knights kept the juice going with Ryan Reaves tipping in his first goal of the season to give VGK a 4-3 lead.
VGK scored its fourth goal of the period when defenseman Alec Martinez took a pass from Tomas Nosek and made it, 5-3.
Then things got very interesting when Evander Kane scored a power play goal with Keegan Kolesar in the box for hooking.
The VGK lead shrunk to 5-4.
But the Knights held on after getting 16 shots on goal in period three.
Final score: Vegas 5 San Jose 4
“These are emotional games,” Martinez said of the Sharks-Knights rivalry games.
The Golden Knights are now 5-0 against the Sharks, with Fleury improving to 16-5 on the 56-game schedule. After 27 games, the VGK have a sparkling 20-6-1 record.
Here’s the scoring for that crazy third period:
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After morning practice, VGK goalie Robin Lehner discussed the rumors about his absence in response to a question from RJ reporter David Schoen. SinBin.vegas posted the answer.
