Cardiac Carrier lifts Knights over Sharks

Just when it looked like the Golden Knights could be heading for overtime in their matchup with the San Jose Sharks, left-winger William Carrier puts a feed from center Chandler Stephenson in the back of the net to give Vegas the 2-1 win Thursday, Feb. 16 inside T-Mobile Arena.

“It’s not easy to win in this league,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We’ve talked about being comfortable in low-scoring games.”

As mentioned, Stephenson assisted on Carrier’s game-winner along with defenseman Shea Theodore. Carrier now has seven game-winning goals this season which is one shy of the team record (Mark Stone 2020-21, 8). He has 15 goals this season.

“I might have shot that one a little hard and high,” Carrier said. “I was going to make sure he wasn’t going to get anything on it.”

Thursday night’s game was the ninth third period comeback win for the Golden Knights this season which leads the NHL.

The Golden Knights finished the game going 0-for-8 on the power play despite forcing San Jose into 24 penalty minutes. Vegas was able to successfully kill off the only penalty they faced in the game.

Vegas won 41 faceoffs compared to 22 for San Jose and the Knights finished the game with 38 shots on goal compared to 27 for the Sharks.

Goaltender Adin Hill picked up the win in net for the Knights as he made 26 saves on 27 shots faced for a final save percentage of .963.

“Hilly was really big,” center Jack Eichel said. “He made some big saves down the stretch for us and even in the beginning of the game.”

A valiant effort from Sharks goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen came up just short as he recorded 36 saves on 38 shots faced for a final save percentage of .947.

This is the 33rd win of the season for the Golden Knights and fourth win in a row as they have now run their record to 33-18-4 in the Pacific Division. This record is good for 70 points in the division, good for a two point lead over the Seattle Kraken for the top spot in the Pacific.

The Golden Knights will wrap up their three-game homestand Saturday night as they welcome the Tampa Bay Lightning to T-Mobile Arena. Puck drop for that one is set for 7:30 p.m.

This will be the first time this year that the Golden Knights and Lightning have met in what will be the first of two scheduled meetings this year. The second of those games will take place Mar. 9 at Amalie Arena in Tampa, FL.

It was an active first period for the Golden Knights especially on the offensive side of the rink as they were able to fire off 14 shots on goal compared to only four shots for the visiting Sharks. There was nothing to show for any of the shots on goal during the period as the game remained at a 0-0 tie heading into the second period.

Vegas went 0-for-3 in the first period on the power play while San Jose failed to convert the only power play opportunity they had during the opening 20 minutes of play.

Right-winger Jonathan Marchessault and defenseman Zach Whitecloud each chipped in three shots on goal for the opening frame while Theodore fired two shots at the net, combining for eight of the 14 Vegas shots on goal in the first.

The power play struggles continued for Vegas in the second period as they failed to convert both chances they had, moving them to 0-for-5 on the power play after two periods.

San Jose edged out Vegas in shots on goal for the second period 9-8 which included an Alexander Barabanov goal with 2:56 to play in the period. It was Barabanov’s tenth goal of the season and gave the Sharks a 1-0 lead heading into the third and final period of play.

Vegas broke their scoreless drought with less than 14 minutes to go in the game when center Paul Cotter rifled in his third straight goal in as many games and his 11th goal of the season to tie the game up at one.

Eichel snagged his 22nd assist of the season on that goal.