San Jose off to nightmarish start in Vegas
LAS VEGAS — The Sharks began their Western Conference semifinal series against expansion Vegas in forgettable fashion Thursday night, losing 7-0.
Sharks goalie Martin Jones allowed four goals in the first period, equaling the total he surrendered in the first-round series sweep of Anaheim.
Before a raucous T-Mobile Arena crowd of 18,444, the Golden Knights cruised the rest of the way. It matched San Jose’s worst margin of defeat, a 9-2 loss to Calgary in 1995, in its 216 playoff games.
Sharks head coach Peter DeBoer hopes his team’s performance was an anomaly.
“It’s the first adversity we’ve faced in the playoffs,” he said, “but you don’t get extra points (for) winning by a touchdown.
“No doubt, turnovers were an issue, but we had a laundry list of issues.”
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is here at 5 p.m. Saturday. It shifts to San Jose for the third and fourth games Monday and Wednesday.
The expansion Golden Knights were 200-to-1 preseason shots in the city’s casinos to hoist the Stanley Cup this summer, but with their stunning success from the start, those odds have been whittled to 9-5. San Jose could be had at 9-1 this week.
Evander Kane, the top-line wing the Sharks obtained from Buffalo in February, might have displayed teamwide frustrations when his cross-check to the mug of Pierre-Edouard Bellemare dumped the Vegas wing to the ice. Kane was booted on a game misconduct, and the NHL might be quick to issue further discipline.
Kane said he was happy that Bellemare returned to the ice after sustaining that vicious third-period hit, something that just got away from Kane.
“Glad he wasn’t hurt,” Kane said. “I’m not a dirty player. They came out hard in their building, and we got behind the 8-ball.”
Kane walked away when a reporter asked him about a possible suspension from the league.
Vegas had not played since completing a sweep of the
Kings on April 17. A night later, San Jose finished its sweep of Anaheim.
Jones said the time off was no issue because it was virtually the same for both teams.
“It was not,” he said, “our best game.”
Jones and Marc-André Fleury represented the marquee duel heading into Thursday. Fleury, 33, led all active goalies with 66 playoff victories. His goals-against rate (0.65) and save percentage (.977) in that first-round pasting of the Kings were career bests in the 23 playoff series in which Fleury has participated, 22 of those coming with the Penguins.
Jones, 28, has his own spots in the record books. His 1.90 goals-against average and .931 save percentage topped the charts for active goalies. That was before Thursday.
Cody Eakin, the center on Vegas’ third line, ricocheted Brayden McNabb’s slap shot between Martin and the right post 4½ minutes into the game to trigger the onslaught.
Just 26 seconds later, Erik Haula fired the puck by Martin’s left shoulder and into the net.
Jonathan Marchessault scored, and Alex Tuch made it four goals in a span of a bit more than seven minutes when he knifed between all four Sharks on a power play and pumped the puck in the upper-left corner of the goal.
Less than five minutes into the second period, Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore, a Sharks pest, flipped in Reilly Smith’s nifty feed from the left flank for a 5-0 advantage.
DeBoer had seen enough. He plucked Martin for backup goalie Aaron Dell.