Following back-to-back home losses for the first time in over a year, the Vegas Golden Knights take a quick one-game road trip to San Jose to play the struggling Sharks in a Monday afternoon matinee.
Vegas holds an eye-popping 23-2-5 all-time regular-season mark against San Jose, including 3-0-0 this season. It’s the start of a four-day stretch that sees the defending Stanley Cup champions play three games with home contests against Nashville on Tuesday and Toronto on Thursday.
The Golden Knights, who are just 12-10-4 on the road this season, bring in a two-game losing streak after losing to Minnesota (5-3) on Monday and Carolina (3-1) on Saturday. It marks the first time since Jan. 16 (4-0 vs. Dallas) and Jan. 19 (3-2 vs. Detroit) of 2023 that Vegas dropped back-to-back games at T-Mobile Arena.
It looked like the Golden Knights were in good position to pull out a win on Saturday when they entered the third period tied, 1-1, and still had 1:49 remaining on a power play. Instead, center Seth Jarvis scored a short-handed goal to give Carolina a 2-1 lead, and Stefan Noesen batted in a rebound for a key insurance goal six minutes later.
“That stung, especially because our power play has not been producing,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said of Jarvis’ short-handed goal. “Opportunity to take the lead and it goes the other way. That one was the turning point of the game for me.”
“It sucks they got one, but that’s kind of how the game is sometimes,” defenseman Nic Hague said. “We have to find a way to respond.”
As tough as that loss may have been for the Golden Knights, it didn’t come close to matching San Jose’s 4-3 home loss to Columbus on Saturday.
That contest appeared to be headed to overtime but Boone Jenner scored on a breakaway with only 12.9 seconds remaining to win it for the Blue Jackets. Johnny Gaudreau, who had three breakaway tries in the first period alone, including two during one 4-on-4 series, made the pass to spring Jenner for the game-winner.
“Tough way to lose,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “Certainly didn’t like our start at all. I thought we were really loose. Giving Johnny Gaudreau three breakaways in the first period is inexcusable.”
Kaapo Kahkonen, who made 37 saves in the contest, denied Gaudreau on all three of his breakaways but couldn’t stop Jenner’s backhand try.
“We talked about situational hockey this morning,” Quinn said. “Just another opportunity for us to play smart and we didn’t. … It was the story of the night. It was a struggle. Breakaways, then more breakaways. We were just watching the puck way too much and not really paying attention.”
One bright spot for the Sharks was forward Anthony Duclair who scored a pair of goals.
“It’s obviously tough to lose the way we did,” Duclair said. “It’s one of those that you have to learn from and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
This is the final of four meetings between the two teams. Vegas outscored the Sharks a combined 9-1 in winning the first two games but the Golden Knights needed a shootout to win the most recent matchup, 5-4, on Dec. 10 in Las Vegas. Jonathan Marchessault, who leads Vegas with 28 goals, had two goals in that contest and also tallied the clinching goal in the shootout.
–Field Level Media
