Thanks to Chandler Stephenson’s pinpoint pass, William Carrier had a wide-open net — which oddly caused a moment of panic.
He has missed or has been stopped on similar chances this season but made sure this wouldn’t be one of them, punching in a goal with 17.7 seconds left Thursday to give the Golden Knights a 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks before an announced crowd of 17,544 at T-Mobile Arena and extending the Knights’ winning streak to four.
“I might have shot that one little hard and high,” said Carrier, who has a career best 15 goals. “I was going to make sure (the goalie) was not going to get anything on it.”
Paul Cotter scored the other goal for the Knights and Adin Hill made 26 saves.
“On a night like that where it feels like we’re generating a lot of chances and we have some opportunities, we’re not finding the back of the net, it could easily went the other way,” Knights center Jack Eichel said. “Big on Hilly to come up with those big saves for us. We’re only able to generate two goals, so we’re lucky that he was able to backstop us.”
Hill outdueled San Jose’s Kaapo Kahkonen, who stopped 36 shots and was tested by the Knights going on the power play seven times. The Knights failed to capitalize against the NHL’s fourth-ranked penalty kill.
“I don’t want to go down that path, but you’d be hard pressed to find a hockey game where one team takes seven penalties and the other only takes one,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. “Frustrating, but give our penalty kill a ton of credit. They did a hell of a job. Our goalie was outstanding.
“I thought it was his best game of the year, and I’m just real disappointed we weren’t able to finish it off the last 17 seconds.”
The Knights have their own reasons for frustration, having converted just one of their past 28 power plays. Coach Bruce Cassidy said the team has been working to get more interior chances with the man advantage rather than rely on outside shots.
“I think that’s just a mindset that we have to keep chipping away at to get the interior plays so that you’re able to open up passing lanes,” Cassidy said. “We’ll keep grinding away at it.”
The problems in that area included failing to score on three power plays in the first period, even with six shots with the man advantage and outshooting San Jose 14-4 overall.
San Jose shut down the Knights’ offense in the second, not allowing a shot on goal over the first 11 1/2 minutes.
The Sharks then got it done on the offensive end when Alexander Barabanov scored off a rebound with 2:56 left in the period to take a 1-0 lead.
The Knights nearly tied it 1:26 into third period, but officials nullified Jonathan Marchessault’s power-play goal because the referee determined he pushed Kahkonen’s pad over the line.
The Knights finally broke through five minutes later when Eichel fed Paul Cotter for a 2-on-1 breakaway to tie it. That extended Cotter’s goal streak to three games, with Eichel notching five points (two goals, three assists) in the same spam.
Then Carrier won the game late, and the Knights continued their domination of San Jose, leading the all-time series 20-2-4.
