Center Tomas Hertl will make his first visit to the SAP Center since being traded last season when the Vegas Golden Knights, who are leading the Pacific Division, face the San Jose Sharks on Friday.
Hertl was selected by San Jose as the 17th overall pick in the 2012 NHL Draft. Over 11 seasons, he scored 218 goals and 484 points, making him the sixth-highest scorer in the team’s history. San Jose traded him to the Golden Knights just before the trade deadline in March. The Sharks will play a video tribute to honor his return.
“I’m excited for it,” said Hertl, 31. “I can’t really tell how the feeling (will be) right now. We are going to be on the other side in the visiting team (locker room).”
“We had some great runs. I played there a long time, but I still want to take the two points from there and have a good game. … I really don’t know what to expect because I haven’t been in this situation before in my life.”
Hertl has scored 10 goals, including a team-high seven on the power play, and has 24 points for Vegas. In the Golden Knights’ last game before the holiday break, he scored the team’s go-ahead goal and added an assist in a 3-1 home win over the Anaheim Ducks on Monday.
With an 8-1-0 record in December, the Golden Knights entered the break with the NHL’s best points percentage at .721. They carry a four-game winning streak into San Jose and have a 25-2-5 record all-time against the Sharks, including a 12-0-3 record in San Jose.
Vegas is 19-3-2 against teams in the Western Conference and 11-2-1 against Pacific Division rivals.
“Right now in the (Western Conference) I certainly feel we’re going as well as anybody, and that’s a credit to the guys,” said Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy.
The Sharks are in last place in the Pacific Division with 28 points, 21 fewer than the Golden Knights. They’ve lost five straight games since a 4-3 win at St. Louis on Dec. 12, with four of those losses being by one goal. This includes a 3-2 overtime loss to defending Western Conference champions Edmonton last Saturday.
The Sharks are coming off a 4-3 loss to Vancouver on Monday, when they allowed three goals in a 70-second span late in the second period, falling behind 4-1.
“Today was four or five minutes, and we lose a hockey game because of it,” said San Jose coach Ryan Warsofsky on Monday. “So, it’s frustrating. I feel for the guys because I thought we had a good effort tonight.
We competed, we pushed back, but we have to learn from it and move on. … We got to find some mental toughness to push through and stick together and do things and clamp it down and keep it simple.”
San Jose begins a six-game homestand with a back-to-back series against the Golden Knights and Calgary Flames. The Sharks have a 6-9-1 home record this season but will face a Vegas team that is 9-5-3 on the road.
This is the second of three matchups between the two teams. Vegas won the first game 7-3 on Oct. 26 in Las Vegas, with Mark Stone and Pavel Dorofeyev each contributing one goal and two assists.
