All San Jose wanted to do Wednesday night at SAP Center was to slow down the Vegas Golden Knights.
The Sharks did much more than that: They killed off five Golden Knights power plays and held Vegas scoreless for the first time this postseason, grabbing a 4-0 victory in Game 4 and evening the second-round series at two games apiece.
Vegas had scored 14 goals in the first three games of the best-of-seven series, including seven in the opener. Wednesday, not only was San Jose’s defense tough, but the forwards helped, too.
“Game 1, that was on the forwards turning the puck over too much in the neutral zone, we didn’t give our D-men a chance,” Sharks center Logan Couture said. “We did a better job of not forcing plays when we didn’t have it, just chip it in and go forecheck, that gives the D-men a chance to get their gap.”
Back among the Sharks’ defensemen: Joakim Ryan, out since March 16 with an upper-body injury. He played nearly 12 minutes in Game 4 and said his legs and his lungs felt good.
There had been some questions about leaving in Paul Martin for Game 3 once Ryan was available again, but Sharks head coach Peter DeBoer said, “We didn’t win tonight because of Joakim Ryan. We didn’t lose (Game 3) because of Paul Martin. Our team game the last three games has been really good. The difference tonight was they were 0-for-5 on the power play and we stuck some goals in the net.”
