Vegas Golden Knights open 2019-20 with an almighty bang after routing Sharks

What a night. After all the hype, all the talking and all the preseason chatter about lineup combinations and roster decisions, the Vegas Golden Knights were finally able to get back down to business on Wednesday night and, boy, did they deliver.

Taking on bitter rivals the San Jose Sharks in their 2019-20 regular season opener, the Vegas Golden Knights fed off an electric atmosphere inside a packed T-Mobile Arena and they marked their third year as an NHL franchise in perfect fashion by rolling to a 4-1 victory.

There was one major negative before we go on, however, with defenseman Nate Schmidt forced to leave the game in the first period after his knee collided with Logan Couture‘s knee in an ugly collision. It is expected that Schmidt will undergo an MRI in order to determine the full extent of any damage.

Apart from that scare, there were no further blemishes on Vegas’ copybook as they absolutely dominated from start to finish with their vast array of big guns all producing the goods, while rookie phenom Cody Glass showed why all the hype this preseason was more than justified.

And the Golden Knights wasted little time in flying out of the traps and stamping their authority on proceedings, recovering from a couple of early sloppy plays to storm into a two-goal lead thanks to tucks from Mark Stone and Reilly Smith.

The Sharks were without the suspended Evander Kane and elite defenseman Erik Karlsson, who was a late scratch in order to attend to a personal matter. And it was evident San Jose were reeling from notable absences after being outshot and outplayed by their hosts.

Marcus Sorensen did get San Jose on the board but it was all Vegas the rest of the way and goals from Glass and Smith completed the scoring and put the gloss on what was a stunning victory for the Golden Knights who opened 2019-20 in the perfect way.

Let’s now break down the game period-by-period and analyze the Vegas lineup…

The Lineup

If you attended Vegas Golden Knights’ last game of 2018-19 and watched their 2019-20 season opener last night, then the majority of the lineup would have looked extremely familiar. There were a couple of differences, however.

As expected, Marc-Andre Fleury got the start between the pipes and there wasn’t room for a rookie on the blueline, with Nick Holden instead partnering fellow veteran Deryk Engelland on the bottom defensive pairing with Jimmy Schuldt and Nic Hague both healthy scratches.

However, there was an NHL debut for high-end talent Cody Glass who centered a second line between Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone, with Paul Stastny dropping down to the third line to play with Valentin Zykov and Brandon Pirri.

Alex Tuch and Cody Eakin – both upper-body injuries – started the season on LTIR and IR respectively, while William Karlsson, Jonathan Marchessault, Reilly Smith, Brayden McNabb, Nate Schmidt and Fleury were the starters for Vegas.

The Game

First Period – It was a shaky start to the 2019-20 season opener for the Vegas Golden Knights, who had to survive a couple of scares in the early stages of the game, with two icings in the first 15 seconds by the home team leading to a Jon Merrill turnover, although Marc-Andre Fleury was sharp to deny Kevin Labanc.

But it was plain sailing from there for the Golden Knights who got rid of the opening night nerves to assert their authority on proceedings, and they made sure to make their first power play of the year count thanks to Mark Stone who wristed home his first goal of the year at 3:46.

And it didn’t take long for the Knights to put another goal on the board with a Dalton Prout turnover proving costly as William Karlsson found Reilly Smith in the sweet spot in the slot and the forward did the rest with a one-timer.

There was a body blow for the Golden Knights, however, after Nate Schmidt was forced to leave the game early following a brutal collision with Sharks Captain Logan Couture.

The scoring wasn’t done in the opening period, either, although it was San Jose who got on the board with Marcus Sorensen wristing a shot beyond Marc-Andre Fleury on the high glove side.

Vegas had outshot the Sharks 12-8 in the first period and if it wasn’t for some superb stops from Martin Jones on the likes of Karlsson and Max Pacioretty, then it could have been a lot uglier for San Jose heading into the first intermission.

Second Period – Much of the preseason revolved around Cody Glass’ mission to crack the opening night roster and, given his big chance, the young phenom didn’t disappoint. He was impressive in the first period and he carried that through into the middle frame, producing the biggest moment of his career to date.

After Mark Stone did a tremendous job of keeping the puck alive and getting it to Max Pacioretty, the veteran wing showed sublime vision to pick out Cody Glass and Vegas’ first-ever draft pick in franchise history scored his first NHL goal in his very first NHL game.

There were signs of the game getting chippy as Brayden McNabb – who was superb all night – got into it with Timo Meier, while Jones was still standing on his head for the Sharks after robbing Pacioretty on two occasions.

And Jones’ excellence ensured San Jose were still in the game heading into the third and final period.

Third Period – We talked about special teams a lot going into this game and it was evident that the Golden Knights have put a lot of work into both their power play and their penalty kill.

And they grabbed a shorthanded goal at 4:01 in the third thanks to an absolutely beauty of a play between Karlsson and Smith.

The two played a game of tic-tac-toe which finished in Karlsson feeding Smith with a sublime dish and the latter was able to one-time home the puck past a helpless Jones. It was Smith’s second goal of the night and Karlsson’s second helper.

And that was that with the Vegas Golden Knights getting contributions from all over the ice as they powered their way past the San Jose Sharks to open 2019-20 with a resounding win.

Let’s go over some stats and notes from the game…