Reilly Smith scored two goals to lead the Vegas Golden Knights to a 3-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night in Las Vegas.
Keegan Kolesar also scored a goal and Jonathan Marchessault and William Karlsson each had two assists for Vegas, which won its 11th consecutive regular-season meeting with the Sharks dating back to the 2019-20 season.
The Golden Knights also improved to 14-0-2 in their past 16 regular-season contests against San Jose.
Robin Lehner, playing for the first time since Feb. 9 after missing five games with an upper-body injury, made 16 saves to pick up his 20th victory of the season. It also was the 500th NHL coaching victory for Vegas’ Peter DeBoer who began his coaching career with the Florida Panthers in 2008-09.
Noah Gregor scored for San Jose, which was playing its sixth game over a 10-day span. Zach Sawchenko stopped 18 of 20 shots after replacing starting goaltender James Reimer, who departed with a lower-body injury after turning aside 10 of 11 shots in the first period.
San Jose lost for the 11th time in its past 14 games (3-7-4).
Vegas jumped out to a 1-0 lead at the 2:16 mark of the opening period when Kolesar finished an odd-man rush with Brett Howden. Kolesar fired a snap shot from the bottom of the left circle past Reimer’s blocker side for his sixth goal of the season.
San Jose tied it early in the second period when Gregor took a pass from Nick Bonino and shot into a wide-open right side of the net. It was his first goal in 11 games and third of the season.
The Golden Knights regained the lead at the 13:56 mark of the middle period. Smith took a pass from Marchessault between the hash marks and buried a shot into the top left corner.
Smith made it 3-1 at 4:45 of the third period when he redirected a touch pass from Karlsson beyond Sawchenko’s right pad for his 16th goal of the season and the 22nd two-goal game of his career.
–Field Level Media