San Jose Sharks @ ​Vegas Golden Knights Tips - Golden Knights to tame surging Sharks

The San Jose Sharks take on the Vegas Golden Knights in an all-NHL West Division clash on Tuesday, March 16. This will be the first of a two-game series between the Sharks and the Golden Knights, the second meeting taking place two days later. Vegas are currently top of the West Division, with San Jose down in seventh.

This will be the fourth meeting of the season between these two teams, with Vegas leading 3-0. San Jose were beaten by Vegas 3-1 in February, and again 5-4 (OT) and 4-0 earlier this month. 

Although the Sharks go into this game off the back of three straight victories, I’m backing the Golden Knights to whether San Jose’s attacks and counterpunch them to defeat in what will be a close encounter. Vegas will win this game by no more than two clear goals in a match that will feature six goals or less.

The San Jose Sharks and the Vegas Golden Knights have played each other a total of 34 times in NHL regular season games. Currently, the Golden Knights lead their head-to-head by 22-12. In their last 10 games since the start of 2019, Vegas lead 7-3, and have won their last four meetings.

In their most recent game, on March 7 of this year, Vegas Golden Knights  won 4-0.

The San Jose Sharks are currently second from bottom of the NHL West Division with 25 points, having played 25 games, with 11 wins and 14 defeats, three of which were overtime shootouts. A positive factor for San Jose is that they have games-in-hand over all the other teams in the West Division, except for their opponents on Tuesday, the Vegas Golden Knights.

San Jose go into Tuesday’s game in fine form having won their previous three matches. On March 9 they defeated St. Louis 3-2 after an overtime shootout. Four days later they demolished the Anaheim ducks 6-0 for their most one-sided win of the season. 

The following day they defeated Anaheim again 3-1. The danger men for the Sharks are Evander Kane, one of the few black players in the NHL, with 11 goals, and 12 assists, and the equally lethal Logan Couture, with 13 goals and nine assists.

The Vegas Golden Knights currently top the NHL West Division with 37 points from 25 games of which they have won 18 and lost just seven. According to the National Hockey League, Vegas are currently ranked seventh, but this is more to do with the fact that they have played fewer games than all of the teams ranked above them, and should they convert those games in hand into victories, they could well be top of the league.

Vegas are fresh off back-to-back victories over the St. Louis Blues, defeating them on Saturday (March 13) via a 5-4 overtime shootout, and routing them 5-1 the following day. It was just the tonic Vegas needed following back-to-back defeats to the Minnesota Wild. Previously, the Golden Knights had won six games consecutively.