Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Golden Knights on wrong end of goalie battle in overtime loss to Sharks

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Steve Marcus

San Jose Sharks right wing Timo Meier (28) collides with the goal post and Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Nate Schmidt, left, after scoring on Marc-Andre Fleury (29) in the second period during a game against the San Jose Sharks at T-Mobile Arena Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019.

Golden Knights Fall to Sharks in OT

San Jose Sharks right wing Timo Meier (28) collides with Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Nate Schmidt after scoring on Marc-Andre Fleury (29) in the second period at T-Mobile Arena Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019. Launch slideshow »

The Golden Knights, since their founding, have always been able to score against the San Jose Sharks. They have averaged 4.10 goals per game against San Jose, and Sharks goalies had a putrid .878 save percentage when facing Vegas.

Then Vegas encountered San Jose backup Aaron Dell, a goalie clinging to a roster spot and who has struggled against the Golden Knights. But they couldn’t get it done Thursday, managing just a goal on 38 shots in a 2-1 defeat at T-Mobile Arena.

“We ran into a hot goalie and we’ve got to move on,” defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “That’s a good team over there and at least we got a point out of it.”

It’s tough to overstate how much San Jose netminders have struggled against Vegas. Only once in 10 previous regular season meetings have the Golden Knights only scored one goal and only one more time have they scored just two. In fact, Vegas has more games that it scored five-plus goals against San Jose (five) than games that it scored two or fewer (three).

But Vegas couldn’t do much against Dell, who entered the game with an .878 save percentage on the year. McNabb scored on a wrister through traffic at 9:42 of the third to tie the game, but that was it in a game that the team managed 29 scoring chances and eight high-danger scoring chances, according to Natural Stat Trick.

“It wasn’t like we're missing the net a whole lot — he made some good saves,” coach Gerard Gallant. “You’ve got to give the goalie credit once in awhile.”

And once the game reached overtime, recent history foreshadowed what came next. Vegas has not won at 3-on-3 in its last 11 games dating back to last season and has dropped the last six in games that did not extend to the shootout, including all four this year. If the game does reach the shootout, the Golden Knights are 2-0 this season.

Thursday’s overtime had the end-to-end action the league intended it to be when the format began. There were 12 total shot attempts in the extra period and 10 that reached the goal. William Karlsson had a golden chance that Dell denied, then Marc-Andre Fleury batted away Kevin Labanc’s try six seconds later, then Dell stopped Karlsson again seven seconds after that.

"I thought this was like a typical 3-on-3 game,” forward Paul Stastny said. “There was kind of nothing and then when one chance opened up, we had a couple of looks, they had a couple of looks. That’s 3-on-3. It’s kind of a crapshoot."

The power play went scoreless in three attempts against San Jose’s top-ranked penalty kill (89.9%). Vegas had just five shots on goal in six minutes of ice time with the extra man, and San Jose had four short-handed blocks.

Gallant postgame referred to the game as part of a process. The Golden Knights played two terrific games against Calgary and Toronto on this homestand, and seemed to shrug off Thursday’s loss in the “can’t win ‘em all” vein, which seems like a fair summation.

The Golden Knights had 60.5% of the 5-on-5 shot attempts, 63.9% of the scoring chances and 62.0% of the expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick. They ran into a good goalie, and sometimes that’s just how it goes.

“When they’re going real good, it just seems to be connecting,” Gallant said. “Tonight it just wasn’t happening.”

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