In a real test of their recent good fortunes, the San Jose Sharks visited The Strip Thursday and defeated the Golden Knights, 3-2.
The loss snapped a seven-game win streak Vegas was riding.
“It’s great,” Sharks head coach Peter DeBoer said. “Obviously working for the Sharks, the franchise and the area, but particularly for me it’s a testament to the fans. They were Vegas and this environment before Vegas was this environment. It’s a great place to work and it’s a great place for our guys to play hockey.”
Melker Karlsson and Joonas Donskoi struck in the third period for San Jose with 39 seconds separating the goals.
“They’re both dirty goals in that you are going to the net and there’s bodies there and a lot of traffic,” DeBoer said. “They’re not pretty goals and we knew we were going to have to score that way on [Fleury]. He’s always good against us. We did what we had to do to get two big points.”
Tomas Hertl also scored for the Sharks.
Martin Jones made 36 saves to get the win.
“We just stuck with it. That’s the team that always tends to jump out and use the crowd to their advantage,” Jones said. “They always come out to good starts. We just stuck with it; we didn’t panic. Obviously, with the early goal, we just kept getting pucks out and pucks in. It was a good gutsy road win.”
The Sharks improved to 26-13-7.
Tomas Nosek and Jon Merrill scored the Vegas goals.
“It’s unfortunate to lose that one there,” Merrill said. “I thought we had a strong effort, but it’s all right. We’ll get back to the drawing board and start over a new streak in Chicago on Saturday.”
The Knights dropped to 27-16-4.
[WATCH:Â All Sharks vs. Golden Knights highlights]
Marc-Andre Fleury made 24 saves.
“It was fun. The crowd was awesome, it was loud. It’s such a good rivalry with this team. We’re so close in the standings, so these points mean a lot. That’s why it’s so frustrating to miss out on that,” Fleury said.
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