The Associated Press
Josh Dubow
SAN JOSE, Calif.–Marcus Sorensen and Joonas Donskoi delivered the fast start San Jose coach Peter DeBoer wanted, and Martin Jones did the rest, to help the Sharks tie their second-round playoff series with Vegas at two games apiece.
Sorensen and Donskoi scored in the first period, and Jones made 34 saves for his sixth career post-season shutout, as the Sharks bounced back from an overtime loss to blank the Golden Knights 4-0 in Game 4 last night.
“We’d been chasing the game the whole series,” DeBoer noted. “We talked about it but it’s easier said than done.
“I think we’ve had chances in the last two games to get out in front but [Marc-Andre] Fleury has, I think, been exceptional, especially early in games, in order to keep us off the board.
“It’s nice that we’ve stuck with it, and hopefully we see some cracks,” he added.
Tomas Hertl added his team-leading fifth goal of the playoffs and Joe Pavelski scored a power-play goal in the third to set up a best-of-three for a spot in the Western Conference final.
Game 5 goes Friday night in Las Vegas.
Vegas failed to convert on all five power-play chances while losing for just the second time in eight games this post-season.
“They were a little more competitive than we were tonight,” Golden Knights’ coach Gerard Gallant said.
“We didn’t play a bad game but we didn’t play well enough to win and they did, and they really did,” he stressed.
“I think we played well enough to win all of the first three [games] but tonight, no.”
Jones was a big reason for that, starting with a key save early against Reilly Smith.
He was helped on a delayed penalty when Brent Burns cleared a puck off the goal line and when James Neal hit the post on a power play in the first period.
But the San Jose goalie also delivered some big-time saves, including back-to-back stops against William Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault on a Vegas power play in the final minute of the second.
Jones tied Evgeni Nabokov’s team record for most saves in a playoff shutout, and the Sharks have turned things around following a 7-0 loss in the opener.
“I thought we probably managed the puck a little bit better for the whole game,” Jones noted. “We won battles on the boards, we got pucks out when we needed to, and we got pucks in when we needed to.
“That was big for us tonight.”
Elsewhere, Tampa Bay beat Boston 4-1 to lead their Eastern conference semi-final series 2-1.
