The Sharks unveiled their overhauled roster to
start their 35th NHL campaign on Thursday night and things looked peachy for 57
minutes, then the ghosts of cursed 3rd periods smacked them square in the jaw.
Leading 3-2 late in the contest. San Jose had a chance to ice things with an
empty net goal. That didn't happen and the visiting Vegas Golden Knights were
gifted a win on a fluke play and poor decision making in overtime.
Vegas escaped with a 4-3 overtime victory in improbable fashion.
After
William Eklund just missed stuffing a puck into an empty net, the Knights
skated the puck up ice and tried to dump it into the Sharks zone. Jack Eichel
simply flipped the puck into the zone, but it skipped 4 feet in front of Sharks
goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic before slipping though his pads to tie the game for
the 3rd time of the night.
San Jose may have been satisfied with an
overtime point last season, but their growth needs to start showing they're
able to hold on to leads. They didn't.
Vegas would win the game after
a long deflection into the Sharks zone forced Nedeljkovic to make a decision on
skating out to play the puck or stay in his net. He chose wrong.
The
goaltender skated out to within 6 feet of the blueline to try and clear the
puck, but it deflected off a defender right to Shea Theodore who moved it to
Reilly Smith for what amounted to an empty net goal.
Game over. Sharks
lose. Thanks for coming.
It was just another brutal reminder that the
Sharks have miles to go to be competitive in the NHL.
Jeff Skinner is
the answer to the trivia question, which Shark scored the 1st goal of the
2025-26 season. Skinner's persistence around the Vegas net resulted a go-ahead
goal 5:31 into the contest after Ty Dellandrea tried making a pass to the slot
from the right wing, but the puck deflected off a skate and then on net.
Knights goaltender Akira Schmid made the stop on the pin-balling puck but
couldn't control it. Skinner was lurking off the right post where he was able
to put three attempts on goal. The veteran forward swatted his third chance out
of the air, lifting it home for the 1-0 lead.
Brett Howden answered
less than 3 minutes later, walking a puck from the right dot to the front of
the net before sending a backhand chance past Sharks goaltender Alex
Nedeljkovic. Defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin elected to sit on the right post
to cover a Vegas forward, but in doing so, he allowed Howden to move to the top
of the crease for an easy deposit.
Mukhamadullin took the first
penalty of the season with a cross check at 10:53, but the Sharks successfully
killed off the Vegas power play.
San Jose took advantage of Vegas penalty issues
early in the 2nd period. Former Sharks forward Tomas Hertl was sent off for
boarding at 5:38, then Mitch Marner followed him with a slash 53 seconds later.
The Sharks used the 2-man advantage to convert at 6:59 when Alexander
Wennberg chipped home a puck that was sliding through the slot from right to
left. William Eklund either tried setting up something out front or he
intentionally sent it to Wennberg, but the Sharks forward got a stick blade on
it to redirect it home for the 201 lead.
Vegas countered on the power
play after Mukhamadullin was sent off for hooking at 14:15. Pavel Dorofeyev
scored his 4th goal of the season on the man advantage to re-tie the game at
2-2. The young Knight setup at the bottom of the right circle, then one-timed a
Mark Stone feed from beyond the end line on the left side.
San Jose
went in front for the third time of the game 2:59 into the 3rd period. New
forward Philipp Kurashev deflected a shot by new defenseman Dmitry Orlov to
give San Jose the 3-2 lead. Orlov fired the shot from the left point as
Kurashev was floating out in front of the Vegas net.
Hertl was sent
off for cross checking Skinner in the back of the head at 7:33. San Jose would
not capitalize on the power play opportunity but it did burn valuable time off
the clock.
Part of the Sharks growing pains exposed itself with 5:02
remaining in regulation when Will Smith tool a bad hooking penalty. Holding on
to 3rd period leads are not effective when you're skating down a man. The
Sharks killed the penalty but that will go on the "things to cover in practice"
list.
The hockey gods dropped the hammer on the Sharks with 2:34 to
play. After Vegas pulled Schmid, William Eklund had a chance to ice the game on
an empty net chance, but he was rubbed off the puck late.
It was all
pain, misery and everything else that goes along with Sharks hockey. All the
positives that San Jose rolled up in the first 57 minutes were crushed in the
blink of an eye.
Game Notes: * Jeff Skinner's 1st
period goal was his 700th career NHL point.
* Ty Dellandrea helped
justify his third line center selection. the forward was a +2, added 2 shots on
goal, 4 hits and was 9 for 17 in the faceoff circle to lead all Sharks in
draws.
* Macklin Celebrini had a relatively quiet night. He was only
credited with 1 shot on goal in the contest and was held off the score sheet.
He scored his first career NHL goal on opening night a year ago.
*
Sharks owner Hasso Plattner spoke to reporters before the game, and touched on
topics from fomer General Manager Doug Wilson's tenure, the rebuild and
mistakes he feels the Sharks made in the draft.
* Referee Garrett Rank
left the game midway through the 1st period. Rank would return late in the 1st
period after missing three quarters of the opening frame.
