Marc-Andre Fleury saves Golden Knights in win over Sharks
Marc-Andre Fleury was flat on his stomach in the crease during the final seconds Monday when he covered the puck and looked at the scoreboard.
The Golden Knights goaltender saw 00.0 on the clock, dropped his head and let out a sigh of relief.
Boosted by the largest crowd of the season, the Knights survived a few tense moments late but were able to exhale following a 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks at T-Mobile Arena.
“The puck was moving around pretty good, and I felt like there was 10 people in my crease the whole time,” Fleury said. “It’s a good feeling. It was a close game till the end there. Everybody buckled down and played so well defensively and blocked some shots and helped me out.”
Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty each had a goal and an assist to help the Knights extend their winning streak to three games.
Fleury started for the 16th time in the past 17 games and nearly shut out the Sharks for the second straight meeting. Timo Meier, who was turned away on a breakaway in the first period, finally beat Fleury with 5:31 remaining when he made a move in tight and tucked the puck inside the post.
The Knights then survived a six-on-four in the final 25 seconds to extend their lead in the West Division to four points over Minnesota.
“He’s been great, and I can’t tell you how important it was that he was our best player tonight,” coach Pete DeBoer said. That first period, we could have been down by a couple.”
Fleury earned career victory No. 481, three shy of Ed Belfour for fourth in NHL history. He finished with 23 saves, including second-period stops on Kevin Labanc and Evander Kane.
Fleury also stuffed Matt Nieto’s attempt from point-blank range early in the third period and added a sliding poke-check on Kane with about eight minutes remaining to the delight of the announced crowd of 3,473.
“That was sick. I mean, the dude is just the man. What else can you say?” Pacioretty said. “Me and (Ryan Reaves) were talking about we want to buy the rights to a movie about him. There’s no one else in the world like him. I get goosebumps just replaying that back in my mind.”
Pacioretty scored on the power play in the first period for his team-leading 14th goal, then set up Stone in the third period for a 2-0 lead.
Pacioretty blew past San Jose defenseman Nikolai Knyzhov along the right-wing boards and centered for Stone, who buried his 10th goal 1:02 into the period.
Stone extended his personal scoring streak to eight games — he missed the March 8 game at Minnesota — and has 16 points (six goals, 10 assists) over that stretch. He leads the Knights with 33 points in 25 games and has six game-winning goals, one behind Toronto’s Auston Matthews for the NHL lead.
The Knights improved to 11-2-1 at home and are undefeated when leading after two periods (13-0-0).
San Jose saw its three-game winning streak snapped and fell to 0-3-1 against their rivals.
“We had a long flight, time change, the hour ahead (and) we were a little bit flat going into the first 10 (minutes),” Stone said. “We got our legs under us.”
The Knights got off to a sluggish start in their first game back from a six-game trip, but converted on a power play eight seconds after Kane went to the penalty box for tripping Jonathan Marchessault in the neutral zone.
William Karlsson won the faceoff, and the puck worked around the perimeter to Pacioretty, who snapped a shot from the right circle at 8:35.
The Knights were 1-for-19 on the power play in the previous seven games before the goal.
“I kind of expected the start. It kind of looked like we had been on the road for 10 days and got back late,” DeBoer said. “Thankfully (Fleury) was our best player and gave us a chance to get our legs under us.”
Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.
