The Vegas Golden Knights needed more time than they would\u2019ve liked in a preseason game to get the win, but the first exhibition campaign under coach Ryan Craig remains unblemished.<\/p>\n
The Knights defeated the San Jose Sharks 2-1 in a shootout at SAP Center on Tuesday to improve to 2-0 on the preseason.<\/p>\n
Forwards Matyas Sapovaliv and Braeden Bowman scored in the shootout, and goaltender Carter Hart stopped two of three to put a cap on an impressive preseason debut.<\/p>\n
Hart, in his first game action since losing Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final in June, made 28 saves and outdueled San Jose\u2019s Yaroslav Askarov and his 22-save effort.<\/p>\n
Both goalies looked ready for the regular season. It was a goal-less game through two periods and took until 4:18 into the third period for the dam to break. Sharks forward Michael Misa broke the deadlock with a power play goal after Hart made an initial kick save, but the puck found Misa on the weak side for the finish.<\/p>\n
The goal came after forward Joe Fleming was called for elbowing, his second penalty of the night.<\/p>\n
That was the only blemish Hart allowed. It was enough time for Alexander Holtz, much like Misa before him, to eventually break through. Holtz tied it at 8:22 with a quick release from the low slot.<\/p>\n
Hart was locked in from the start. He had the disadvantage of having an AHL-heavy roster in front of him while facing a Sharks team that had some NHL regulars.<\/p>\n
Hart made key saves through the first 40 minutes. His best came midway through the second period with a kick save on San Jose forward Colin Graf\u2019s net-front redirect to keep the game goal-less.<\/p>\n
Askarov countered with stops of his own. He robbed Holtz in the first period after a lengthy cycle from the top line created an extended zone shift.<\/p>\n
The goaltenders were the bright spots on a night where offense wasn\u2019t a focal point. Hart and Askarov are on different timelines in terms of development and importance to their teams.<\/p>\n
Askarov is the true No. 1 goaltender on a San Jose team that\u2019s on the cusp of getting over the hump of its rebuild, with expectations of returning to the playoffs this season.<\/p>\n
Hart is the likely starter coming off a spring where he was an important reason why the Knights came within two wins of a championship.<\/p>\n
It would take a seismic shift of unforeseen proportions for Hart to not open the season Tuesday against the Chicago Blackhawks. He\u2019s earned the right based off the postseason, no matter how it ended for him and the team.<\/p>\n
It was a game of opportunity for those looking to make a good impression. The Knights didn\u2019t have forwards Kai Uchacz (week to week) and Raphael Lavoie (day to day) due to undisclosed injuries.<\/p>\n
This was the last chance for some of those players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vegas Golden Knights needed more time than they would\u2019ve liked in a preseason game to get the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-472854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472854","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=472854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}