Sharks blank Knights 4-0 to tie series

Lightning strike again to take lead over Bruins

Tomas Hertl scored his team-leading fifth goal of the play-offs, Martin Jones made 34 saves for his sixth career postseason shutout and the San Jose Sharks evened their second-round series against the Vegas Golden Knights with a 4-0 victory in Game 4 on Wednesday night.

Marcus Sorensen and Joonas Donskoi scored in the first period to allow San Jose to play from ahead and Joe Pavelski added a power-play goal in the third to help the Sharks rebound from an overtime loss at home in Game 3.

Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said: “There was no big adjustments or anything different. We just started to play our game. We’ve played speed teams all year. We know what we have to do in order to have success against teams like that. I think we started in Game 2 to pay attention to the details that you need to to have success against teams like this, and I think every game we’ve gotten better.”

Marc-Andre Fleury made 30 saves and Vegas failed to convert on all five power-play chances to lose for the second time in eight games this postseason. “I thought San Jose played harder than our guys,” Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said. “They won the individual battles at both ends of the rink and in front of the net. When you do that, you’re going to win hockey games.”

The teams have now alternated wins through four games, heading into Game 5 on Friday night in Vegas.

Ondrej Palat scored twice in the first 3:19 of the game, and Tampa Bay beat Boston to open a 2-1 lead in their Eastern Conference semi-final series. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 28 shots for Tampa Bay, who have won two straight since losing the series opener at home.