SAN JOSE, Calif. — The San Jose Sharks were playing hockey inside SAP Center for the first time in 11 months on Saturday afternoon.
Some of the troubles they had when they were on the road for the first 12 games of the season followed them back home.
The Sharks, playing their first home game since March 8, 2020, allowed three power-play goals and couldn’t muster much of a response in a 3-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Tomas Hertl scored his sixth goal of the season and goalie Martin Jones made 23 saves, but Jonathan Marchessault, Mark Stone and Chandler Stephenson all scored with the man advantage as the Golden Knights won the first game of the season between the two intense rivals.
The Sharks went 0 for 3 on the power play as they were held to two goals or fewer for the sixth time in 13 games this season. They are now 2 for 34 with the man advantage in their last 10 games. The Sharks entered Saturday ranked 13th in the NHL on the penalty kill at 80.8%.
More troubling for the Sharks was seeinng defenseman Radim Simek leave the game early with an injury in the second period and not return.
As the puck was behind the Sharks’ net, Simek was drilled by Marchessault against the boards. Shortly after with the puck in the corner to the left of Sharks goalie Martin Jones, Simek, still smarting from the first hit, was cross-checked in the ribs.
Before that sequence, Simek had upended Golden Knights forward Reilly Smith with a check in the Sharks’ corner as the two were racing to retrieve the puck.
Simek left the ice under his own power but had to go to the Sharks’ dressing room about two minutes into the second period. The Sharks were down 1-0 at the time Simek was hurt, and trailed 2-0 when Stone scored a power play goal at the 9:56 mark of the second period.
Simek was playing in his 11th straight game after he missed the Sharks’ first two games this season with knee issues. His ice time had steadily increased in that time, as he played a season-high 19:39 in Thursday’s 6-2 Sharks loss to the Los Angeles Kings.
The Sharks got one of those goals back with 1:21 left in the second period, as Hertl one-timed a pass from Rudolfs Balcers past Vegas goalie Marc-Andre Fleury for his sixth goal of the season.
The individual rivalry between Evander Kane and Ryan Reaves picked up where it left off last season. Even though Saturday’s meeting between the Sharks and Golden Knights was their first since Dec. 22, 2019, Kane and Reaves have kept up a regular banter on their Twitter accounts.
In the first period, Kane sidestepped a Reaves check in the corner to the left of the Sharks net. As two skated up the ice, Kane checked Reaves in the neutral, and Reaves responded with a slash to the back of his adversary’s legs. The two were given coincidental minors at the 14:00 mark.
Just 47 seconds earlier, the Golden Knights’ opened the scoring with a power-play goal. With Kane in the box for holding Max Pacioretty, Marchessault scored from in close for a 1-0 Vegas lead.
