By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
They played nice Monday when an NHL most-games-played record was broken by Patrick Marleau.
But on Wednesday, the Vegas Golden Knights and San Jose Sharks returned to their skirmish-filled ways, with the young rivalry yielding physical scraps and body shots throughout the evening.
It didn’t help the Sharks. The Golden Knights was the first NHL team to clinch a playoff spot in this 56-game pandemic season with a 5-2 win over San Jose Wednesday, their eighth straight win that included a two-goal, two-assist night by feisty forward Jonathan Marchessault. The Knights are only the fourth team in NHL history to make the playoffs in each season of their first four seasons.
“Once you get in, all those 16 teams have an opportunity. It’s nice that we’ve punched our ticket,” Golden Knights coach Pete DeBoer said. “I wouldn’t trade our group for any other group out there.”
The Sharks’ Timo Meier put San Jose on the board when a puck got by Fleury with a few players piled in front of his net a few minutes into the game.
But Marchessault slipped the puck past San Jose goalie Josef Korenar at 6:51 and the score was tied, 1-1, after the first 20 minutes.
The Knights peppered Korenar with 19 shots in the first period and had several good scoring chances.
There were some good skirmishes, too, with the Knights’ Max Pacioretty and San Jose’s 36-year-old Brent Burns mixing it up.
In period two, another San Jose nemesis for the Golden Knights — Tomas Hertl — scored at 11:07. He blasted in a goal off a rebound and the Sharks led, 2-1.
But the Golden Knights answered.
On a powerplay, Knights forward Mark Stone scored a gorgeous wraparound goal and the game was knotted at two in period two. Stone’s goal was similar to the one he scored two night ago when the VGK defeated San Jose, 3-2, in a shootout.
The Knights killed an Alex Tuch penalty and then Tuch buried his 17th of the season off a sweet pass from Shea Theodore with only 50 seconds left in the middle stanza and the Knights led, 3-2, heading into the final period.
The attendance was the usual 3,950, which is 22 percent of capacity at the arena, where official fixed-seat capacity is 17,367.
Marchessault (his 13th of the season) whistled in a one-timer off a pass from Mattias Janmark to give the Golden Knights a 4-2 lead in period three. janmark was on the Misfits line because Reilly Smith was out. Forwards Ryan Reaves and Keegan Kolesar were also out. Janmark deposited the puck into an empty net and that was your final: Vegas 5 San Jose 2.