Golden Knights clinch playoff berth, then lose to Sharks in OT

SAN JOSE --The Vegas Golden Knights clinched a Stanley Cup Playoff berth prior to a 4-3 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center on Thursday.

Vegas became the first Western Conference team to clinch when the Nashville Predators lost 2-0 at the Pittsburgh Penguins.
"It's obviously great to clinch a playoff spot," Golden Knights forward Nicolas Hague said. "We got our foot in the door there now. We've got some huge games coming up to try and solidify a [top seed]. We've got teams in the West and a couple big games against divisional teams to try to separate ourselves, and hopefully, we can kind of have a say in who we end up playing."
Ben Hutton had two assists, and Laurent Brossoit made 21 saves for Vegas (46-22-7), which is two points ahead of the Edmonton Oilers for first place in the Pacific Division, and three ahead of the Los Angeles Kings. Edmonton won 2-0 against Los Angeles on Thursday to move into second.
"Clinched a playoff spot, so checked that box off. Now we want to try to win the next thing, which was a game in front of us, and we looked out of sorts a lot of the night," Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. "They put some pressure on us. They were skating well. Reloading well. [It] was probably one of our poor nights executing."
Logan Couture scored on a breakaway 50 seconds into overtime, and Mario Ferraro had a goal and an assist for the Sharks (21-39-15). James Reimer made 23 saves.
"I thought for most of that game, we were the better team," said Couture, the San Jose captain. "We played extremely hard. We played smart. We played good hockey."

Ferraro gave the Sharks a 1-0 lead at 4:16 of the first period with a shot through traffic that was set up by Thrun.
Oskar Lindblom made it 2-0 at 14:31 after a cross-ice feed from Ferraro.
"I'm excited about a lot of things that happened tonight," San Jose coach David Quinn said. "There's been a lot of change here in the last month and a half, and all we want to do is give a good effort. An honest effort and compete. And we did that tonight in spades."
Hague cut it to 2-1 at 16:55 shortly after Reimer was unable to play the puck behind the net.
Ivan Barbashev tied it 2-2 on a power play at 1:08 of the second period after Nicolas Roy managed to get him the puck while falling down.
Tomas Hertl put San Jose back in front 3-2 at 11:47 on a redirection from Martin Kaut.

Michael Amadio tied it 3-3 on a rebound at 10:07 of the third period.
"They limited us to a few shots, and they played an aggressive, good game," Vegas forward William Karlsson said. " [They] made it tough for us in the neutral zone. We just kind of got going there at the end, got a little desperate, and managed to get a goal and then tie it up."
NOTES:Vegas is 10-0-3 all-time at San Jose. … Golden Knights center Jack Eichel lost 12 of 13 face-offs. … Sharks defenseman Henry Thrun had two assists in his NHL debut. He played 18:46. … Lindblom left the game in the second period with an upper-body injury. … Couture has eight career overtime goals, trailing only Brent Burns and Patrick Marleau in San Jose history. Each had 10.