Vegas down Sharks, 3-1

In Las Vegas, Reilly Smith scored in the middle frame on Tuesday night to give the Golden Knights a 2-1 lead over the San Jose Sharks, his third period goal goal iced a 3-1 win for Vegas.

“We do have a lot of success against them [18-1-3 all-time], but I think it’s just a coincidence,” Vegas’  Jonathan Marchessault said. “We’re ready against them. We had a rivalry against them the first few years and it kind of wore off. I think it’s just that we’re confident and we know how to play against them. They’re in a situation where they’re not as offensively gifted as they were the first few years of our existence. We’re just cashing in and playing the right way.”

Robin Lehner made 16 saves in the Vegas win.

“I thought all of our lines played great today, but that line — Smith put two in the net,” Lehner said. “We all need to get it going here and string some wins together. We need everyone to keep getting ready for that push down the road here.”

Noah Gregor was the lone striker for San Jose.

“All our guys looked tired tonight,” San Jose coach Bob Boughner said. “No excuses, but we’ve played a lot of games over a short amount of days. It’s been a grind. We weren’t heavy and hard enough. … I don’t think it was a lack of effort. I just think there was no juice in the tank.”

The Sharks dropped to 24-24-6.

“The only [positive] thing I’d say was that we found a way to keep it a one-goal game for a long time,” Boughner said. “That’s an opportunity on the road no matter how you’re playing. You can come up with 10 good minutes and find a way to win, but we couldn’t really muster anything up tonight.”

Keegan Kolesar added a single marker for the Knights.

“We had a lot of time with the puck in the O-zone,” Smith said. “We probably didn’t create [as much] offense as we would have liked to. But when we’re able to have a lot of puck possession and have our [defense] moving, it opens up a lot of space. So that’s something that we need to continue to work on.”

The Golden Knights improved to 30-20-4.

James Reimer got the start for the Sharks, but left the ice in the first period with an apparent injury.  He surrendered one goal and made 10 saves.

Zach Sawchenko made 18 saves in relief.