The team at Adam Kutner Cares gave away two tickets and a Zamboni ride to the Vegas Golden Knights’ game against the San Jose Sharks last night. For more pics of our winner, head to our Facebook page.
What may have been the most anticipated game of the season, turned into a pleasant surprise for Vegas fans.
It was a special night as the Golden Knights hosted the San Jose Sharks on Hockey Fights Cancer Night.
With the arena colored in lavender, fans and players honored family and friends impacted by cancer. It was a touching moment delivered by the Golden Knights and the NHL.
Seconds after the opening faceoff was dropped, San Jose found themselves in a quick hole. Vegas center William Karlsson deflected one past Sharks goaltender Aaron Dell 14 seconds into the game. Karlsson broke his own record (:54) of fastest goal in team history.
It didn’t get any better for San Jose, as Vegas tacked on three more in the period. Max Pacioretty added two, and Colin Miller got his second in two games.
After a four-goal first period, the Golden Knights came out feeling confident for the second. Fourth line force William Carrier took an awkward pass and muscled past Dell for a 5-0 Vegas lead. The Golden Knights beat the Sharks to loose pucks, in the neutral zone and in front of the net.
“They’re a good team and they got some experience from last year, some good make-up there on their team. You come in, you got to play a heavy game. It’s nothing, you know this group you just got to be ready for it. That’s why you got to stick your nose in there. We battled teams like this before… but you’re going to have to stick your nose in there and win some battles on a night like tonight, and we didn’t do a good enough job.” – Joe Pavelski, San Jose Captain
Vegas outworked the Sharks all game, and it paid off. To cap off a perfect night, Alex Tuch sniped the Golden Knights sixth goal past Dell. It was a tough night for the Sharks backup goaltender.
On the other end of the ice, Marc-Andre Fleury played another brilliant game shutting out San Jose. Fleury adds to his league-best fifth shutout this season. The future Hall of Famer recorded his 53rd shutout of his career tying Pekke Rinne for 23rd best in NHL history.
“Well it makes it easy when you have a guy like Fleury, but again you don’t like to play goalies a lot back to back but we had an afternoon game here the other day and it was an evening game, so it made a lot of sense. He had enough work against Calgary, but it wasn’t like he had 50 shots and he had to make outstanding saves back to back, so we thought he was rested, he felt good so that makes your decision easy for you. Especially when he had a shutout the last game.” – Gerard Gallant, Vegas Coach
Vegas’ next game is on Tuesday night in Chicago to take on the Blackhawks. The Golden Knights improved their record to (12–12-1) and tied for third place in the Pacific. Pacioretty added his seventh and eighth goal of the season, and Karlsson scored his sixth of the game.