Golden Knights’ Defining Moments: Blowing out the Sharks on opening night

By Justin Emerson

Monday, April 13, 2020 | 2 a.m.

Any chance a team gets to pick up an emotional, commanding victory over a rival makes for a fun time at the arena.

The Golden Knights were able to do just that at home against the San Jose Sharks to open the season, and they then followed it up by doing the same on the road two nights later. It was a terrific start to what many hoped would be the start of a strong 2019-20 campaign.

It’s ended up being a strong season, but maybe not so much because of those wins. The Golden Knights didn’t surge to the top of the Pacific Division while never looking back, and even spent a lot of the early part of the season out of a playoff spot altogether.

So how important were those wins really?

Over the next couple weeks, the Las Vegas Sun will look back at pivotal moments throughout the season. The series will cover everything from the obvious turning points to more obscure ones that went by without much fanfare at the time but turned out to be important.

Today we look at the opening night victory against the Sharks.

Where the Golden Knights were

Who could forget? It was the first meaningful game since last year’s controversial postseason exit. The team — and even more so, the fans — had all summer to stew over the way Game 7 against the Sharks ended, and a barnburner was expected.

That is, until the theatrics came early.

The last preseason game of the year was also against the Sharks, three days before the regular season opener on Oct. 2. The Golden Knights and Sharks dropped the gloves in that game — who else but Evander Kane against who else, but, uh, Valentin Zykov? — and combined for 114 penalty minutes in a spiteful game that in no way felt like an exhibition.

It set the stage for perhaps the most anticipated opening night matchup in the NHL.

What happened

The Golden Knights won of course. The Sharks may have circled this game as an important one, but to the Golden Knights, it was the only game that mattered. They waited almost six months for it. They weren’t going to lose.

They scored on their first shot of game, a power-play tally from Mark Stone, and capped it with a short-handed 2-on-0 that Reilly Smith finished. Marc-Andre Fleury was terrific, and the crowd was electric.

It was also the NHL debut of 20-year-old Cody Glass, the first draftee in team history as the sixth overall pick in 2017. He centered Stone and Max Pacioretty and promptly scored in the second period on the first shot of his career.

It was a great night for Vegas from start to finish, as it cruised to a 4-1 victory to start the season.

How it was received

Quite well, to say the least. 

The players would never admit it, but the victory meant more to them than two points in the standings. The fans were much more vocal about it. A win on opening night followed by the similar 5-1 drubbing in San Jose lifted the mood around town.

Cody Glass’ big night was the focus of my game story instead of the implications of beating the Sharks. After the second win, I called it as good of a start to the season as Vegas could have asked for.

How much it mattered looking back

It’s complicated looking back on opening night and pulling something definitive out of it. A win is of course a positive, but how important was this one in particular?

The Sharks didn’t end up being the contender many expected, sitting with the fewest points in the Western Conference at the pause of the NHL season.

The Golden Knights treated them accordingly in those opening two games, outscoring their rivals by a combined 9-2, but they then dropped their next two games. They were 6-3 after their first nine games, but had more losses than wins come November and even briefly fell behind the Sharks in the standings.

The two wins weren’t a springboard for a fantastic season. Sure, before the season paused the Golden Knights were on top of the Pacific, but there were other moments that had a much larger impact than two rivalry wins back in October.

The Golden Knights didn’t have the best start to the season, but the first two games were unequivocally great, both in their play on the ice and the feeling provided to the fanbase after the way last season ended.

Maybe they didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of the season, but they mattered quite a bit then, and no one would have traded that feeling.