The Sharks entered Monday night’s contest riding a season-best three-game win streak, due in large part to stellar efforts from goalies Devan Dubnyk and Martin Jones.
Though Dubnyk took the loss in a 2-1 defeat against the Vegas Golden Knights, he put together another prime performance while dueling Marc-Andre Fleury.
After the game, Dubnyk said he enjoyed trying to match Fleury, per Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now.
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SIGN UP HERE San Jose’s goalie tandem has combined for a .959 save percentage over the last four games, its best stretch all season. In the first 22 contests of the season, the Sharks’ netminders had a combined .881 save percentage.
“The last four games, our goaltenders have been very, very good,” Sharks captain Logan Couture told reporters in his postgame video conference. “They give us a chance in every game, they make game-changing saves.”
On Monday, Dubnyk racked up 34 saves on 36 shots and ended up on his back multiple times as he made some acrobatic moves. He was also aggressive on select plays and vacated the crease to challenge skaters and make saves.
At one point he made back-to-back saves to deny Golden Knights forward Jonathan Marchessault, who appeared to ask “Are you kidding me?” -- with some expletives mixed in.
Dubnyk clearly loved to see Marchessault a little razzled.
But Dubnyk and the Sharks couldn’t keep the lid on the goal and fell into a 2-0 hole by the time Timo Meier scored his goal with 5:31 left in the game.
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Couture said that San Jose’s offense didn’t hold up its end of the bargain on Monday.
“It’s the whole team,” Couture said. “It’s all of us. The goalie did good tonight but we didn’t score. It’s on us. There’s nights goalies are great and we might stink. Other nights when goalies have tough games. We have to pick each other up.”
While Jones started out the season as the No. 1 goalie, Dubnyk has made five of the past six starts and could get another nod in Wednesday’s rematch against rival Vegas as the hot hand in the crease.
