The San Jose Sharks can match their longest winning streak of the season when they host the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night.
The Sharks, last in the Pacific Division with 32 points, have won back-to-back home games over Tampa Bay (2-1) and the New Jersey Devils (3-2). San Jose has won three in a row twice this season, most recently Nov. 29-Dec. 3. But a hat trick of three-game win streaks won’t be easy.
Vegas leads the NHL with 57 points and is a league-best 16-3-1 over its last 20 games. The Golden Knights are also 26-2-5 all-time against the Sharks and have never lost in regulation in 16 games (13-0-3) at San Jose.
Vegas comes in off a 3-1 victory over the visiting Buffalo Sabres on Saturday. Jack Eichel scored a goal and assisted on the game-winning tally by Mark Stone. For Stone, it was his 600th career point as the Golden Knights won for the eighth time in their last nine games.
“We’ve played well,” Stone said. “We’re starting to play better defensively. At the start of the season, you’re just trying to outscore everybody. It’s not really taking away from our offense. We’re still scoring three, four goals a night but we’re doing a great job of getting our offense off good team defense.”
The Golden Knights have allowed two goals or fewer in 14 of their last 20 games while recording a pair of shutouts, including a 1-0 win over the high-powered Edmonton Oilers on Dec. 3. Vegas is an eye-popping 21-3-2 against Western Conference foes.
“It’s good when you get on a run like this,” Eichel said following his 18th multi-point game of the season. “There’s obviously confidence in the room and you expect to win every game, and that’s the mentality of our group. We expect to go out and win every hockey game and try and put our best foot forward.”
San Jose comes off an impressive 3-2 win over visiting New Jersey on Saturday. Cody Ceci scored the game-winner with 25 seconds remaining in the third on a one-timer inside the blue line that hit the glove of Devils goaltender Jacob Markstrom and trickled into the net.
Talented rookie Macklin Celebrini and Nikolai Kovalenko also scored and Yaroslav Askarov made 28 saves for the Sharks, who have put a recent eight-game losing streak (0-7-1) in the rear-view mirror with the back-to-back victories.
“We started getting our identity going early in the year and (were) not getting the result, and now we’re starting to get rewarded for it with these last two especially,” San Jose coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “Our guys are starting to see the recipe and how you need to play and compete.”
“It feels great,” Ceci added. “We’ve been on the other side of it, and now to come out on this side, it’s good for our group.”
This is the third and final meeting. Vegas won the first two, 7-3 on Oct. 26 at home and 6-3 at San Jose on Dec. 27.
