Vegas Golden Knights Topple Sharks in Preseason Finale

In what already promised to be a tumultuous final preseason matchup to begin with, the Vegas Golden Knights crushed the San Jose Sharks with a 5-1 victory in their final game of the preseason on Sunday afternoon.

There’s no love lost between these two teams. After the infamous “Not A Major” situation that resulted in the Vegas Golden Knights being knocked out of the Stanley Cup finals last year, the team has been looking for redemption. Though it’s only preseason, they came out ready for a battle.

Oh, and what a battle it was. It was such a fight between these two rivals that they managed to reach 114 total penalty minutes. Yes, you read that right. 114 total penalty minutes in the preseason. Just crazy.

The first period of the game was just an appetizer. There were plenty of shots-on-goal for both teams (12 for San Jose and 14 for Vegas), but it wasn’t until there was 2:24 left on the clock that those efforts resulted in a goal.

William Carrier managed to tip-in a goal past San Jose goalie Martin Jones to draw first blood for Vegas. Tomas Nosek was credited with the assist. At the end of the first period, Vegas had a leg up with a 1-0 lead.

If the first period was just a morsel, the second period was the juiciest rib-eye there is. Golden Knights rookie Jimmy Schuldt would record his first goal ever with the franchise, assisted by William Karlsson and Reilly Smith.

It would be the first of three goals in the period for Vegas. Jonathan Marchessault scored the second while Mark Stone would get the third.

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Vegas ended the second period in the lead with 4 goals to San Jose’s goose egg. San Jose did lead in other things, though, such as shots-on goal (12 vs. Vegas’ seven) and number of penalty minutes. Evander Kane was the biggest offender, drawing two penalties in the second period alone.

Which brings us to the third period, which was a huge ice cream sundae that was full of nutty, crazy penalties. Tensions were flaring, blood was boiling, and all that testosterone had to go somewhere.

There were a few minor penalties here and there, a slashing against Timo Meier of San Jose or a high-sticking call against Max Pacioretty. The most severe of the penalties came, however, when Aaron Dell decided an elbow to the shoulder would serve Stone well.

Stone immediately retaliated, which resulted in a number of scraps and penalties. Meier served Dell’s penalty, Kevin Labanc did time for Marc-Edouard Vlasic and both Stone and Tomas Nosek were pulled to the box for their fights as well.

If you thought that would have quenched some of the rivalry fire, it was stoked again just over a minute later. Pacioretty and Matt Dillon both got into it with each other, and other fights erupted as a result. Pacioretty and Nicolas Hague would be given penalties for Vegas while Dillon and Barclay Goodrow would be issued them for San Jose.

The cherry on top of this dessert mountain of penalties game was issued to San Jose’s Kane. Kane gave Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Deryk Engelland a decent check, to which Engelland retaliated with a light shove. As a referee split the two apart before any fists started flying, Kane attempted to slash at Engelland while the referee was still between them, catching the referee instead.

The referee tried to get his attention, Kane ignored him and continued skating away until the referee gave a light shove, both of them toppling to the ice. Upon standing, Kane got irate and pushed at the referee, no doubt slinging obscenities. He was issued a 10-minute misconduct for “abuse of an official,” effectively ejecting him from the game.

There were other highlights in the third period other than the fighting, however. Within two minutes of the third, Danil Yurtaykin was able to get a backhanded goal past Marc-Andre Fleury, finally putting San Jose on the board. Reilly Smith answered with a goal of his own, which would be the last of the period, resulting in the final 5-1 victory score for the Golden Knights.

While this game doesn’t mean much for the veterans as it is only preseason, this game means a lot to Vegas Golden Knights newbies Hague and Schuldt. Both are still vying for a chance to stay in the major leagues as a defenseman.

Hague had a decent night for stats. He had two shots-on-goal, two hits, and one block, serving a total time on ice of 22:12. There is some promise for the 20-year-old Canadian.

Jimmy Schuldt, on the other hand, really came to play. He too had two shots-on-goal, but one resulted in an actual goal. He received credit for an assist as well, which – with his goal – added two points to his record. Though he had only one hit, he had three blocks and spent less time on the ice than Hague at 20:59. It should be interesting to see which rookie makes the cut.

With preseason over, the Vegas Golden Knights must turn their attention to the main season and, most importantly, the season opener. They face the Sharks once more on Wednesday evening at T-Mobile Arena in the 2019-20 regular season opener, before heading to San Jose for yet another rematch on Friday in their first road game of the year.