In San Jose, Logan Couture scored off a breakaway with 50 seconds gone in extra time on Thursday to give the Sharks a 4-3 win over the Vegas Golden Knights.
The Knights be forgiven for being a little loose against the Sharks. Prior to puck drop, Vegas clinched a playoff berth when the Nashville Predators lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 2-0, on Thursday.
“It’s obviously great to clinch a playoff spot,” Golden Knights forward Nicolas Hague said. “We got our foot in the door there now. We’ve got some huge games coming up to try and solidify a [top seed]. We’ve got teams in the West and a couple big games against divisional teams to try to separate ourselves, and hopefully, we can kind of have a say in who we end up playing.”
James Reimer made 23 saves in the Sharks win.
“I thought for most of that game, we were the better team,” said Couture. “We played extremely hard. We played smart. We played good hockey.”
San Jose moved to 21-39-15.
Mario Ferraro and Oskar Lindblom scored in the first period to give the Sharks a 2-0 lead.
“I’m excited about a lot of things that happened tonight,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “There’s been a lot of change here in the last month and a half, and all we want to do is give a good effort. An honest effort and compete. And we did that tonight in spades.”
Hague trimmed the deficit to 2-1 before the end of the first period, sending the game to middle frame, 2-1, to San Jose.
Vegas dropped to 46-22-7.
Ivan Barbashev scored off the power play in the second period to knot the game, 2-2.
“They limited us to a few shots, and they played an aggressive, good game,” Vegas forward William Karlsson said. ” [They] made it tough for us in the neutral zone. We just kind of got going there at the end, got a little desperate, and managed to get a goal and then tie it up.”
San Jose reclaimed the lead, 3-2, just past the midway point of the middle frame on a goal from Tomas Hertl .
Vegas tied the game midway through the third period, forcing extra time, on a strike by Michael Amadio.
Laurent Brossoit made 21 saves in the loss.
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