Vegas makes San Jose pay for parade to sin bin in 3-1 win

SAN JOSE — The Vegas Golden Knights are a team that likes to get under your skin. If you take the bait like the San Jose Sharks did today, they will make you pay for your indiscretions.

That was the case with the first matchup between the two division rivals in a 3-1 Golden Knights victory on Saturday afternoon at SAP Center.

It had been 342 days since the Sharks last played a home game in San Jose.

Vegas went 3-for-5 with the man advantage against San Jose. The Sharks were 0-for-3.

“It’s those little plays, the execution of that second and third play,” said defenseman Brent Burns on his team’s lack of production on the power play. “It’s the execution at the end of the day that we got to get better at.”

Jonathan Marchessault scored his fourth goal of the season on the power play when he tipped home his own rebound from just outside the crease at the 13:13 mark of the first period.

Vegas (9-2-1) continued its success on the power play when Mark Stone cashed in on a rebound just to the left of the crease at the 9:56 mark of the second period.

As per usual, things were chippy between these two division rivals. Marchessault cross-checked Radim Simek early in the second period, but no penalty was called. Simek finished off his shift but went into the dressing room with an upper-body injury. He did not return to the game.

“I don’t think there were a lot of undisciplined penalties,” said Sharks head coach Bob Boughner. “Or that we were out of control or reacting to anything on the ice. I thought we played hockey, we played hard and we got a couple of calls against us.”

Just when the Sharks (5-7-1) second period woes looked to have sung another sad ballad, a nice two-on-one from Rudolfs Balcers, who made his return to the lineup, to Tomas Hertl resulted in Hertl’s sixth goal of the season as he buried a one-timer from the right side past Golden Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury at the 18:39 mark.

Hertl now has three goals in his past two games for San Jose.

Vegas capitalized for the third straight time on the power play with San Jose going into the sin bin. A cross-ice pass from Alex Tuch went off the skate of Chandler Stephenson for his fifth goal of the season at the 6:45 mark of the third period.

Martin Jones made his third consecutive start for San Jose, with Devan Dubnyk nursing a lower-body injury that head coach Bob Boughner says is a day-to-day thing. He had 23 saves, including one on a breakaway attempt by Ryan Reeves, on 26 shots in the losing effort.

“I thought he gave us a chance to win. That’s all we can ask for every night. It’s tough to produce one goal and put it on the goalie,” Boughner said.

His counterpart, Fleury, made 24 saves on 25 shots to earn the victory.

GAME NOTES

Erik Karlsson suffered a lower-body injury in the third period and did not play the final 11 minutes.
San Jose out-hit Vegas 27-23. The Sharks also had more blocked shots than the Golden Knights with a 15-10 edge.
Noah Gregor and John Leonard were healthy scratches. Kurtis Gabriel made his NHL debut for the Sharks.