SAN JOSE – The Vegas Golden Knights have dominated the Sharks in recent years. That’s not surprising considering San Jose has gone six seasons without a playoff appearance and the Golden Knights win the Stanley Cup in 2023 and are relentless in their search for another one.

Still, it remains a somewhat shocking statistic that the Sharks have never beaten the Golden Knights in regulation time on home ice in eight years.

The Sharks struggled on Tuesday but will have to wait until next season to end this ignominious streak. They twice fell behind by two goals to the Golden Knights and were never able to fully recover in a 4-2 loss in front of an announced crowd of 10,802 at the SAP Center.

The Sharks allowed Mark Stone and Zach Whitecloud even goals in the first period and Victor Olofsson a power play goal in the third, dropping their home record against the Golden Knights to 3-12-2. All three of those wins came in overtime.

The Sharks, who were vastly outnumbered, got power play goals from William Eklund and Timothy Liljegren and lost for the ninth time in 11 games (2-8-1).

Liljegren’s goal came at 10:41 of the third period, but the Sharks failed to equalize as they finished a six-game homestand with a record of 2-4-0.

Goalkeeper Alexandar Georgiev, starting for the first time since New Year’s Eve, made 38 saves, marking his fifth straight loss. Still, it was arguably his most consistent performance in a Sharks uniform, as he entered Tuesday with a 1-4-0 record and an .869 save percentage.

The Sharks had some good performances in the first half, including a breakaway chance from Barclay Goodrow, but were still down by two goals in the early going.

Mark Stone scored at 8:39 to give Vegas a 1-0 lead. After a long pass from defenseman Shea Theodore to the Sharks’ blue line, Stone threw the puck past defenseman Cody Ceci and went alone past Georgiev before scoring his 11th goal of the season.

Whitecloud then scored his third goal of the season at 10:08, a sequence that began with a Sharks giveaway in their own end when Shakir Mukhamadullin had the puck taken from his blind side by his stick.

The Sharks’ two power-play goals on Tuesday marked the first time they scored twice with the man advantage since their win over the Los Angeles Kings on Nov. 25.

As impressive as the Sharks’ victories over the Tampa Bay Lightning and New Jersey Devils were last week, they still faced a formidable challenge in their game against the Golden Knights.

While both the Lightning and Devils struggled upon arriving in San Jose, the Golden Knights managed to claim first place in the NHL standings in eight of their last nine games on Tuesday. Vegas hasn’t lost two games in a row since mid-November.

Since then, the Golden Knights have had a record of 16-3-1, and in those 20 games, six players have had five or more goals and three players have had eight or more assists. It’s a balanced attack that appears to have primed the Golden Knights to win their second Stanley Cup in three years.

“Vegas is one of the best teams when it comes to driving in the middle of the ice,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “Their ride in the middle lane is the best I’ve ever seen and we need to make sure they don’t get overrun by strange men. How do we do that? We can’t turn pucks over at our blue line tonight.”