Golden Knights capitalize on fortunate bounces, beat Sharks in OT

What goes around comes around, apparently.

Reilly Smith scored 1:24 into overtime, and the Knights took advantage of two lucky bounces to beat the Sharks 4-3 Thursday night at SAP Center in San Jose, California.

“We certainly were fortunate,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “The ironic thing is we played that goaltender twice in preseason. He’s played great against us, handled the puck well against us. I guess the hockey gods went our way tonight.”

The Knights were fortunate to get the game to overtime, as Jack Eichel scored the tying goal with 1:34 remaining in regulation. Eichel flipped the puck into the offensive zone from the red line, and the puck took a funny bounce past Sharks goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic.

The goal came not long after Sharks left winger William Eklund missed two chances at an empty net that would have sealed the victory for San Jose. Eichel and defenseman Shea Theodore raced back to keep the puck out.

“That’s probably the thing that should be talked about,” Cassidy said. “That’s something, that domino effect. If he doesn’t give that second effort on that play then we’re not talking about any lucky goals. In that regard it’s sort of karma that Jack ends up with the goal because he’s the one who worked his (butt) off to get back and prevent the insurance goal.”

In the overtime, Nedeljkovic raced out of his crease to play a loose puck near his own blue line, but Smith was able to get a piece of the clearing attempt. The puck bounced to Theodore and he tapped it ahead for Smith, who had an empty net and no defenders within 10 feet.

“You try to put them in tough spots and I think with bad ice at the end of the game like that, sometimes you get fortunate bounces,” Smith said. “Obviously last night’s a point we kind of let slip away, so it was nice to take one back tonight.”

The Knights trailed on three occasions and never led Thursday until overtime. Sharks center Philipp Kurashev deflected a shot by defenseman Dmitry Orlov past Knights goaltender Akira Schmid 2:59 into the third period to put San Jose ahead 3-2.

Pavel Dorofeyev scored his fourth goal in two games, and Brett Howden also scored for the Knights (1-0-1), who continue their three-game road trip Saturday at Seattle.

Schmid started the second of back-to-back games and finished with 20 saves. His best came with eight minutes remaining in the third period against Kurashev on a two-on-one to keep it a one-goal game.

Jeff Skinner and Alexander Wennberg had the Sharks’ other goals.

The Knights were without defenseman Noah Hanifin, who was listed as day to day. Ben Hutton took Hanifin’s spot in the lineup and paired with Zach Whitecloud.

Eichel, who signed an eight-year, $108 million contract before Wednesday’s opener, finished with a goal and an assist and has six points in two games to open the season. Captain Mark Stone added two assists.

The Knights fell behind during an entertaining first period that started with old friend Ryan Reaves trying to get under his former team’s skin during a scrum 15 seconds into the game.

A centering pass by Sharks forward Ty Dellandrea went off defenseman Zach Whitecloud’s skate and the puck bounced toward the front of the Knights’ net. Skinner was there to bat it out of the air for a 1-0 San Jose lead at 5:31 and his 700th career NHL point.

It didn’t take long for the Knights to answer as Howden picked up the puck near the blue line, beat San Jose forward Barclay Goodrow wide and then drove to the net. When the seas parted, Howden tucked the puck around Nedeljkovic at 8:07 to tie the score at 1.

“We’ve been doing a better job of starting to read off each other a little bit more, starting to build a little more chemistry as we play,” Howden said of the fourth line. “I think we all play a similar style of hockey, very direct … getting to the net, putting pucks there, trying to create some havoc.”

The teams traded goals again in the second period. San Jose went ahead 2-1 at 6:59 when Wennberg jammed in a loose puck during a five-on-three power play with William Karlsson and Mitch Marner in the penalty box.

The Knights responded with a power-play goal of their own. Dorofeyev one-timed a feed from Stone to tie the game at 2 with 5:38 left in the period. The play was nearly identical to the two power-play goals Dorofeyev scored in Wednesday’s 6-5 shootout loss to the Los Angeles Kings, with Stone stationed along the goal line and Dorofeyev operating below the right faceoff dot.

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on X.