Sharks tie 2nd-round series with Golden Knights after home ice victory.
Sharks dominate Game 4, send series back to Las Vegas all square
SAN JOSE >> In their biggest game of the playoffs so far, the Sharks came through with one of their most complete performances of the season.
Faced with the prospect of Wednesday’s game potentially being their last of the season on home ice, the Sharks scored twice in the first period and received a sterling effort from goalie Martin Jones to help beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-0 in Game 4 to level the second round best-of-seven playoff series at two wins apiece.
Marcus Sorensen, Joonas Donskoi, Tomas Hertl and Joe Pavelski all scored, and Jones finished with 34 saves for his sixth career playoff shutout, as the Sharks — who felt their play has been improving all series — beat the Pacific Division champion Golden Knights in regulation for the first time this season.
Game 5 is Friday in Las Vegas, and Game 6 will be Sunday back at SAP Center.
“A good game for everyone,” Jones said. “It was probably our most complete game of the series.”
This second-round matchup has come a long way in seven days. It started with a 7-0 Sharks loss in Game 1 last Thursday, featured two straight back-and-forth overtime
games, followed by Wednesday’s result at the other end of the spectrum.
The key to the turnaround has been the way the Sharks have defended.
Taking better care of the puck and no longer letting Vegas’ forwards run roughshod into their own end, the Sharks on Wednesday only allowed the Golden Knights to create a few quality scoring chances at even strength.
“Forwards, we’ve done a better job of not forcing plays through the neutral zone. If you don’t have it, just chip it in and go forecheck,” said Sharks center Logan Couture, who had two assists. “That at least gives our defensemen a chance to get their gap and step up so they’re not flying through the neutral zone.”
Jones had 23 saves in the first two periods, including a sprawling stop on Jonathan Marchessault with 5:32 left in the second period, looking somewhat like his counterpart, the notably athletic and exuberant Marc-Andre Fleury.
Later, with less than 20 seconds to go in the second as the Sharks were killing a tripping penalty to Couture, Jones stopped quality chances by William Karlsson and Marchessault, almost in succession. After the horn sounded to end the second period, Marchessault, with the net empty, swung his stick at Jones’ water bottle as a sign of his frustration.
The Golden Knights’ top line
of Marchessault, Karlsson and Reilly Smith had accounted for a combined 19 points in the first three games but were held off the scoresheet completely for the first time in the series.
“It’s a tight series. Me and (Justin Braun) are playing against them every shift,” Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic said. “Some nights they get the best of us, some nights we get the best of them. It’s tight checking, and it’s a lot of fun.”
At the other end, the Sharks got to Fleury in the first period with a pair of pretty goals to take their first two-goal lead of the series.
It was the breakthrough they had been looking for.
At the 15:37 mark, Sorensen won a battle for the puck in the corner to the left of Fleury with Vegas forward Alex Tuch
and circled to this right. Using Eric Fehr as a screen, Sorensen stick-handled to the middle of the ice, faked a shot to freeze Fleury, then took a stride to his left and buried his fourth goal of the playoffs for a 1-0 San Jose lead.
The Sharks then scored what might have been a gut-punch of a goal with six seconds left before the end of the period.
Donskoi picked the puck deep in the Sharks’ zone, darted up the ice, cut to the middle before he crossed the Golden Knights’ blue line and fired a shot that got through the legs of defenseman Brayden McNabb and beat Fleury high on the glove side.
Donskoi returned to the series after missing Monday’s Game 3 with a lower-body injury. Wednesday morning, he had been labeled a game-time decision by Sharks coach Pete
DeBoer.
“It’s good to see one of those get by Fleury,” Couture. “It seems like he’s stopping everything that he sees, so that was a nice one.”