Golden Knights at Sharks
The San Jose Sharks rebounded from their first loss of the postseason and hope to prevent the visiting Vegas Golden Knights from doing the same when the teams meet for Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals Monday night. The Sharks were pounded 7-0 in Game 1, but fought back from a two-goal deficit and earned a 4-3 double-overtime victory Saturday to take over home-ice advantage in the series.
Logan Couture scored his second goal of the game 5:13 into the second overtime on the power play to complete the turnaround that San Jose coach Peter DeBoer expected from his team: “We were better in every situation, and I knew we would be.” Defenseman Brent Burns had two goals and an assist in Game 2 for the Sharks, who recorded 47 shots and scored twice with the man advantage in seven tries. Vegas, which gave up four goals Saturday after surrendering three in the first five games of the postseason, got two tallies from William Karlsson before permitting three in a 12:07 span during the second period. “They better be ready because we didn’t show up for 45 minutes (Saturday),” Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant told reporters. “We played a great game the other night and competed and battled. And (in Game 2), whether we thought it was going to be easy or what we thought, I don’t know.”
TV: 10 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network, CBC, TVA
ABOUT THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS: Vegas was the fifth-least penalized team during the regular season - second in fewest minutes per game at 6:49 - but were called for 11 in Game 2 and two in the second overtime. “Our game is to roll our four lines over, and that’s something we couldn’t do the first two periods,” defenseman Nate Schmidt told reporters. “We’ve got to make sure we screw the heads back on and make sure that you’re disciplined, because you can’t put this team on the power play.” Forward Reilly Smith has four assists in the series and seven overall in the playoffs to tie Karlsson for the team lead with seven points in five games.
ABOUT THE SHARKS: Couture boasts 13 shots in the series after registering seven in Saturday’s win and shares the team lead in points (seven) during the playoffs with captain Joe Pavelski, who set up a pair of goals in Game 2. Left wing Evander Kane, who had three goals and an assist in the first five games of the postseason, should be back in the lineup after serving a one-game suspension for a violent cross check. Goalie Martin Jones gave up eight goals on 42 shots in the first two contests of the series after permitting four on 132 attempts in the first round, but was 19-10-2 with three of his four shutouts at home during the regular season.
OVERTIME
1. Vegas G Marc-Andre Fleury owns 67 career playoff wins, one behind Andy Moog for 10th on the NHL’s all-time list.
2. San Jose F Joe Thornton is skating with the team after missing more than three months because of a knee injury and is considered day-to-day.
3. The Golden Knights had killed off 17-of-18 power-play attempts in the first five games of the playoffs before going 5-for-7 on Saturday.