Golden Knights erupt for 5 goals in 1st, maintain dominance over Sharks

Mitch Marner scored two goals and Reilly Smith and Mark Stone each had a goal and an assist as the Vegas Golden Knights scored five times in a record-setting first period en route to a 7-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night in Las Vegas.

Brett Howden, Colton Sissons and Tomas Hertl also scored goals for Vegas, which defeated the Sharks for the 10th straight time while improving to 30-2-5 all-time in the regular season against San Jose.

Thirteen players recorded a point for the Golden Knights in the opening 20 minutes, the most in a single period in team history. Braeden Bowman, Pavel Dorofeyev, Kaedan Korczak and Ivan Barbashev each added two assists.

Carter Hart made 21 saves to pick up his 100th career win. Vegas snapped a three-game losing streak and moved into a three-way tie for first place in the Pacific Division with Anaheim and Edmonton.

Macklin Celebrini and Collin Graf scored goals and Tyler Toffoli had two assists for San Jose, which lost its third straight game. Yaroslav Askarov stopped 12 of 16 shots before being pulled at the 14:57 mark of the first period. Alex Nedeljkovic finished up and made seven saves.

Vegas, outscored a combined 5-1 in the first period in back-to-back losses at Calgary and Edmonton on Saturday and Sunday, stressed the importance of starting better Tuesday and did just that, outshooting the Sharks, 17-5, in the first period, including 10-1 in high danger chances.

Howden started the scoring at the 1:46 mark when he finished a 2-on-1 rush with Bowman with a wrist shot into an open net.

Marner made it 2-0 with a power-play goal when his crossing pass from the left circle for Dorofeyev caromed into the net off the skate of Alex Wennberg.

Sissons extended the lead to 3-0 at the 11:37 mark when he tapped in a Keegan Kolesar crossing pass. Hertl then moved into a tie for the team goal-scoring lead with Dorofeyev with his 15th when he snapped in a wrist shot from the slot, sending Askarov to the bench.

Stone made it 5-0 with 1:26 to go in the period when he split a pair of Shark defenders and put in a backhand shot.

Celebrini got San Jose on the scoreboard in the second period when he roofed a snap shot from the high slot to extend his point streak to six games.

Smith restored the Golden Knights' five-goal lead just before the end of the period with a one-timer from the top of the right circle past Nedeljkovic's blocker side.

Marner and Graf traded goals in the third period to finish the scoring.