SAN JOSE \u2013 The next meeting between the San Jose Sharks and the Vegas Golden Knights this season would have to be in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.<\/p>\n
The Sharks would be OK with that because it would mean their first postseason appearance since 2019. The Golden Knights wouldn\u2019t mind it either, simply because they absolutely own the Sharks.<\/p>\n
The Sharks trailed by one after the first period and allowed three straight goals in the second in what became a 7-2 loss to the Golden Knights before an announced sellout crowd of 17,435 at SAP Center.<\/p>\n
Trailing 2-1 after the first period, the Sharks allowed goals to Jack Eichel, Tomas Hertl, and Zach Whitecloud in a span of 8:06 as the Golden Knights rolled to their 11th straight win over San Jose since the start of the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n
The Sharks also lost 7-2 to the Golden Knights on Dec. 23 and were outscored 22-10 in the four-game season series.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a very disciplined team,\u201d said Sharks defenseman John Klingberg, who was activated off injured reserve earlier Sunday after missing four games with a lower-body malady. \u201cThey\u2019ve been playing together for a while, great on the special teams as well. They make you pay if you make mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sharks had earned comeback victories over the Los Angeles Kings and Dallas Stars earlier in the week, but couldn\u2019t muster a similar response against the Golden Knights as their three-game win streak came to an end.<\/p>\n
A day after going 4-for-6 on the power play in their 5-4 overtime win over the Stars, the Sharks were 0-for-5 with the man advantage against the Golden Knights. San Jose also killed just two of four penalties.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just didn\u2019t have that attack mindset to bring pucks to the net,\u201d Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said of the power play.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Vegas has) everything you really want on a power play. They have an elite guy on the half-wall in Eichel. They\u2019ve a big guy in (Mark) Stone as a righty, then they have (Hertl) in the middle as a lefty. Then they get a one-timer (from Eichel) in the flank, and then you get Mitch Marner on top, and that\u2019s without (Shea) Theodore. So there are dangerous weapons at all five spots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forwards Collin Graf and Alex Wennberg both scored even-strength goals for the Sharks (23-19-3), and goalie Yaroslav Askarov finished with 26 saves.<\/p>\n
Eichel and Pavel Dorofeyev scored in the first period for the Golden Knights, who have now won four straight after a five-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, special teams made a big difference today, but if we stick to our game plan and our identity, if we skate and get pucks in deep and forecheck, I feel like we get rewarded,\u201d Wennberg said. \u201cToday, we kind of faded away from it a little bit. Felt like we tried to make plays. We tried to make that extra (pass) and, sometimes, you\u2019ve just got to put the puck on net and find a rebound or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Center Macklin Celebrini was held off the scoresheet Sunday as his point streak, which lasted 13 games, came to an end. The last time Celebrini was held without a point in a game was on Dec. 9 when the Sharks lost 4-1 to the Philadelphia Flyers.<\/p>\n
During his 13-game streak, which was tied for the second-longest in Sharks history, Celebrini had nine goals and 18 assists.<\/p>\n
The Sharks enter Monday in third place in the Pacific Division with 49 points, five points back of the first-place Golden Knights, and one point ahead of the Seattle Kraken, Kings, and Utah Mammoth.<\/p>\n
Beginning with a shocking 4-3 overtime loss on Oct. 9, San Jose went 0-3-1 in its season series with Vegas. Last season, the Sharks were 0-3-0 against the Golden Knights, and in 2023-24, they went 0-3-1 vs. their once-fierce rival.<\/p>\n
San Jose\u2019s last victory over Vegas came on March 30, 2023, when Logan Couture scored in overtime to give the Sharks a 4-3 win.<\/p>\n
The Sharks now begin a four-game road trip against Eastern Conference teams, starting with Thursday\u2019s game in Washington against the Capitals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2013 The next meeting between the San Jose Sharks and the Vegas Golden Knights this season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[401,402,181,404,88,90,89,98,403,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-129864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-inside-sports","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-san-jose","13":"tag-san-jose-headlines","14":"tag-san-jose-news","15":"tag-san-jose-sharks","16":"tag-sharks-alert","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}