Fleury, Dubnyk shine as Sharks fall
Riding a three-game win streak and playing their best hockey of the season, the San Jose Sharks were looking forward to testing themselves against the West Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights.
Even with all of that momentum, the Sharks still couldn’t find a way to pin a loss on Golden Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
Devan Dubnyk made 34 saves but was bested at the other end by Fleury, who beat the Sharks for the third time this season to lead the Golden Knights to a 2-1 win at T-Mobile Arena.
Timo Meier scored at the 14:29 mark of the third period to cut the Golden Knights’ lead to one, but the Sharks couldn’t get a second one past Fleury as they fell to 0-3-1 against Vegas this season. The two teams wrap up their series Wednesday night.
Fleury had 23 saves as Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone both scored for the Golden Knights.
Meier and Evander Kane were denied on breakaway chances by Fleury in the first and second periods, respectively. The Sharks outshot Vegas 11-8 in the first period and but were largely dominated in the second, allowing 16 shots while only managing four on Fleury.
Dubnyk, who had won his last two starts, did what he could to keep the Sharks in the game, stopping 23 of 24 shots in the first two periods.
The Sharks fell behind 1-0 at the 8:35 mark of the first.
With Evander Kane serving a tripping penalty, the Golden Knights won a faceoff in the Sharks’ zone. Shea Theodore then passed to Stone, who fed a cross-ice pass to Pacioretty. He took second before he fired a shot past Dubnyk for his 14th goal of the season.
The Sharks had 26 shot attempts in the first period as Fleury made 11 saves.
Fleury had the Sharks’ number coming into Monday, going 2-0-0 with a .980 save percentage in two games. That included a 24-save performance on March 6 when the Golden Knights beat the Sharks 4-0 at SAP Center.
Last season, Fleury was 2-0-1 in three games against San Jose with a .953 save percentage.
Still, the Sharks liked how they were playing of late. They beat St. Louis 3-2 in overtime on March 8, then swept a two-game series with the Anaheim Ducks over the weekend to improve to 11-11-3.
“I don’t think we were playing as well then as we’re playing now, so that’s a good thing to take out of this,” Sharks coach Bob Boughner said Monday morning of his team’s previous meetings with Vegas.
“I’d like to see us play the same way we did night one in Anaheim, parts of night two in Anaheim, against St Louis. We will have a tough time beating these guys unless we’re at our best, but if we throw the best at them, I truly believe we can bang around with anybody.”