Joe Pavelski’s name will always carry a little extra weight in Vegas.
The Golden Knights have only been around for 10 seasons, but they’ve already built up a long list of playoff flashpoints. With three Stanley Cup Final appearances and one championship, they’ve had no shortage of chances to become a target around the league. And in the middle of one of their most painful postseason memories sits Pavelski, a player who kept showing up when the Golden Knights least wanted him to.
The former San Jose Sharks and Dallas Stars forward spent 18 seasons in the NHL, and his playoff history against Vegas is loaded with moments that still linger. NHL.com’s numbers show how often he found ways to matter: Pavelski ranks third all-time in postseason points against the Golden Knights with 14 in 32 games. That stands in sharp contrast to his regular-season output against them, where he sits 122nd with 11 points in 17 games.
His first postseason run-in with Vegas came in 2018, when the Golden Knights and Sharks met in the second round. Vegas won the series in six games and moved on to the Western Conference Final, but it wasn’t a quiet matchup. There were three shutouts and two overtime games, Logan Couture finished with seven points, and Pavelski added three of his own for his first playoff points against the expansion club.
The rivalry really snapped into focus the following spring.
In the 2019 playoffs, San Jose jumped out to a 1-0 series lead before Vegas answered with three straight wins, including a 5-0 Game 4 that put the Sharks on the ropes. Pavelski scored the series’ opening goal, then came through again with the last goal in Game 5 to keep San Jose alive. He was held off the scoresheet in Game 6, but he was still a central figure when the series reached a winner-take-all Game 7.
That game at the SAP Center in San Jose on April 23, 2019, is the one Golden Knights fans will never forget.
Vegas led 3-0 just four minutes into the third period and was about 16 minutes from ending the Sharks’ season when Cody Eakin was handed a five-minute cross-checking major at 9:13 for catching Pavelski in the face and opening him up. San Jose then ripped off four power-play goals on the extended man advantage, at 9:20, 10:09, 12:53, and 13:21, and suddenly the Sharks were in front 4-3.
Jonathan Marchessault answered at 19:13 to give Vegas one last burst of life, but Barclay Goodrow finished it two minutes into overtime. The NHL later said the major penalty was a mistake, but the damage was already done.
Pavelski’s postseason story against Vegas didn’t end there, either.
He played only six more playoff games in 2019 after that series, as San Jose fell to the St. Louis Blues in the Western Conference Final. His next postseason meeting with the Golden Knights came with Dallas in the 2002 bubble playoffs at Rogers Place in Edmonton, where he scored in a 5-3 qualifying-game loss.
A month later, the Stars and Golden Knights met again in the Western Conference Final, and Dallas took the series in five games. Pavelski contributed a goal and an assist in a series that stayed tight and low-scoring.
Three years later, the teams crossed paths again in the Western Conference Final, and Vegas got a measure of revenge by winning in six games. Pavelski was the reason the series lasted beyond Game 4, scoring the overtime winner on May 25 to give Dallas some hope.
The Stars won Game 5, then were shut out 6-0 in Game 6.
His final playoff meeting with Vegas came in the 2024 first round, when Pavelski was held pointless in seven games as Dallas knocked out the reigning Stanley Cup champions. The Stars then lost to the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Final, and Pavelski played his last game on June 2, 2024.
He never posted the biggest numbers against Vegas, and he never had a hat trick against them. But Pavelski’s playoff legacy with the Golden Knights is tied to something far more memorable: being on the wrong end of one of the most infamous calls in NHL playoff history, and still finding ways to hurt them with the kind of timely goals that made every meeting feel bigger than the last.
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