After a frantic Sharks comeback in the final minutes of the third period to tie their game with the Vegas Golden Knights, including a goal with a fraction of a second remaining, Thomas Bordeleau finished off the night in memorable fashion.
Bordeleau scored in the third round of the shootout, deking out Vegas goalie Logan Thompson after James Reimer didn’t allow a goal at the other end as the Sharks earned a remarkable 5-4 win Sunday over the Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena.
The Sharks erased a two-goal deficit in the last three minutes of regulation time, as Nick Bonino scored with 2:56 left to cut the Golden Knights’ lead to 4-3 before Timo Meier scored with 0.9 seconds remaining off an assist from Logan Couture to tie the game.
Vegas had taken a 4-2 lead on Nicolas Roy’s goal at the 6:35 mark of the third period.
For the game, Bonino scored twice, Tomas Hertl added one, and goalie Reimer had 42 saves in a remarkable performance for the Sharks.
The Sharks’ win snapped their 11-game losing streak to the Golden Knights, an 0-9-2 skid that dated back two-plus seasons.
Meier had a great chance to score in the second period after he came out of the penalty box, but was denied by Logan Thompson on a breakaway chance. The Sharks were also unable to convert on their lone power-play opportunity later in the second.
The Sharks return home for a Tuesday game against the Anaheim Ducks, then finish the season with road games against the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday and the Seattle Kraken on Friday.
Even though the series between the two teams has been one-sided, since midway through the 2019-2020 season, the games have usually featured a fair amount of hostility.
Now, though, the Golden Knights are fighting for their playoff lives, as they entered Sunday four points back of Dallas and Nashville for the two wild-card spots in the Western Conference.
Vegas, with 89 points, also had a chance to catch Los Angeles (96) for third place in the Pacific Division if it won its last four games and the Kings lost their final two.
“It’s the biggest game of the year for Vegas, and hopefully that brings a little bit of extra importance for us,” Sharks coach Bob Boughner said.
The Sharks, of course, would have loved to have been the ones to cripple the Golden Knights’ playoff aspirations.
In recent weeks, the Sharks lost twice to Dallas and once to teams like Minnesota, Vancouver, Nashville, and Edmonton, who are all either chasing a playoff spot or jockeying for postseason seeding.
“We can maybe knock them out of the playoffs,” winger Timo Meier said Saturday night after the Sharks’ 4-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. “We obviously have a rivalry against them, so we’ve got to play hard tomorrow and focus on those last couple of games.”
Boughner didn’t mind hearing Meier’s honest comments.
“I do like that,” Boughner said. “Thinking about it already and knowing what they’re going to be into, I think that’s important. When young guys are surrounded with that, hearing the veteran guys talk like that, that’s got to spike them, too.
“I like that Timo was already thinking about that, and let’s face it, to give ourselves a chance tonight, guys like Timo, Tommy, (Couture), they’re going to have to be our best players. So it’s a good thing.”
Hertl opened the scoring at the 11:43 mark of the first period.
Jaycob Megna took control of a puck that came back to the blue and fired it back toward the net. Alexander Barabanov redirected the puck to open space where Hertl gathered it and shot it past Thompson for his 30th goal of the season. For Barabanov, it was his 29th assist of the year.
The Golden Knights got that goal back on the power play.
Just 13 seconds after Meier began serving a tripping penalty, Chandler Stephenson took control of the puck, which appeared to be nudged forward by Mark Stone, and beat Reimer for his 20th goal of the season.
Taking advantage of some shoddy work by the Sharks in their own zone, Pacioretty and Carrier scored 2:13 apart in the second period, with Carrier’s goal at the 9:59 mark giving Vegas a 3-1 lead.
The Sharks’ rivalry with the Golden Knights was at an apex in 2018 and 2019. The two teams met in the second round in 2018, with Vegas winning in six games, and the Sharks won a memorable first-round meeting the next year, capturing the series with a dramatic 5-4 overtime victory in Game 7.
However, the Sharks have not beaten the Golden Knights since Nov. 21, 2019, when San Jose had Aaron Dell as its starting goalie and Pete DeBoer as its coach. From that point, the Sharks own a dismal 0-9-2 record against the Golden Knights. The Sharks had been outscored 55-22 in those 11 games.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism