DeBoer: Collapse to Sharks would be hard 'to sleep on' if Knights miss playoffs

Peter DeBoer knows full well how much his Vegas Golden Knights' late-game letdown against the San Jose Sharks on Sunday could haunt him and his team if they fail to reach the postseason.

"You hope that it doesn't cost us a playoff spot," the Golden Knights head coach said after his club blew a two-goal lead in the final two-plus minutes of regulation before falling in a shootout. "If it does, that's a tough one to sleep on all summer, but I'm going to look at the glass half-full here.

"We found a way to get a point, and hopefully that point is the difference between us making it or not."

Nicolas Roy gave the Golden Knights a 4-2 lead early in the third period, but Sharks forward Nick Bonino scored with 2:06 remaining and teammate Timo Meier tied the game with less than a second left. No one scored in overtime, and San Jose rookie Thomas Bordeleau produced the only goal in a shootout that also featured Logan Couture, Jack Eichel, Meier, and Shea Theodore.

Vegas captain Mark Stone had a chance to seal it late regulation but failed to hit the empty net from inside his squad's offensive zone.

"I don't think anything got away from us, I think it was just missed opportunities," he said. "Game's over if I put that in, so it's tough for me to look back and say we did a ton wrong. We just have to close out games. We can't allow two goals in the last two minutes, and when you get the opportunities, you've got to finish them. So, (it's a) tough one to swallow for me."

Vegas now sits three points behind the Dallas Stars for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference and four behind the Nashville Predators for the first one. All three teams have three games remaining in their regular-season schedules.

The Golden Knights hold the tiebreaker over the Stars with three more regulation wins, but the odds aren't in Vegas' favor.

Sunday's collapse came nearly three years to the day after the Sharks stunned the Golden Knights in Game 7 of their first-round playoff series on April 23, 2019. San Jose stormed back in that contest with four third-period goals en route to a 5-4 victory in overtime.

DeBoer coached the Sharks for four-plus seasons before San Jose fired him in December 2019. Just over a month later, the Golden Knights dismissed bench boss Gerard Gallant and hired DeBoer to replace him.