San Jose >> The Vegas Golden Knights have dominated the Sharks in recent years. That’s not surprising, considering San Jose is going on six seasons without a playoff appearance, and the Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup in 2023 and are in relentless pursuit of another title.

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

The Sharks battled Tuesday but will have to wait until next season to end that ignominious streak. They fell behind by two goals to the Golden Knights on two occasions and never fully recovered in a 4-2 loss before an announced crowd of 10,802 at SAP Center.

The Sharks allowed even-strength first-period goals to Mark Stone and Zach Whitecloud, a third-period power-play goal to Victor Olofsson and an empty-netter from Tomas Hertl. San Jose’s all-time home record against the Golden Knights is now 3-12-2, with all three wins coming in overtime.

“I thought (Vegas) had control of the whole game,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “Got to be ready to start from puck drop. Our puck play was soft. We didn’t execute. We were soft to play against the front of our net. Just not physical enough.”

The Golden Knights put on a clinic at even strength, outshooting the Sharks 36-18 during 5-on-5 play. The Sharks were outshot 41-22 for the game and managed only power-play goals from William Eklund and Timothy Liljegren as they lost for the ninth time in 11 games (2-8-1).

Liljegren’s goal came at the 10:41 mark of the third period and cut Vegas’ lead to 3-2. But the Sharks could not find the equalizer as they closed a six-game homestand with a 2-4-0 record.

“It’s not just our defensemen. It’s our forwards as well,” Warsofsky said when asked about countering the Golden Knights’ hard forecheck. “And whether that’s communication, whether that’s making your reads, slowing the guys down through the neutral zone, there’s a lot of things on our breakouts that go into it that we need to do a better job with.”

Goalie Alexandar Georgiev, making his first start since New Year’s Eve, made 38 saves in his fifth straight loss. Still, it was arguably his steadiest performance in a Sharks uniform, as he came into Tuesday with a 1-4-0 record and a .869 save percentage.

“It felt like if you could be a little better, maybe we get the win, and that’s kind of the thought process right now,” Georgiev said. “I need to check what happened on those goals and on the saves, too. Of course, you can always do better when you give up three, but a lot of good saves. I’ll try to take that away from (this game).”

The Sharks created some good looks in the first period, including a breakaway chance by Barclay Goodrow, but still trailed by two goals in the early going.

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

Whitecloud then scored his third of the season at the 10:08 mark, a sequence started by a Sharks giveaway in their own end as Shakir Mukhamadullin had the puck taken off his stick from his blind side.

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

As impressive as the Sharks’ wins were over the Tampa Bay Lightning and New Jersey Devils last week, they were still going to face a massive challenge in their game against the Golden Knights.

While the Lightning and Devils had both been struggling when they arrived in San Jose, the Golden Knights came into Tuesday having won eight of their last nine games to vault into first place in the NHL’s overall standings. Vegas hasn’t lost two games in a row since mid-November.

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

Still, Tuesday’s game wasn’t what Warsofsky expected.

“That was not there,” Warsofsky said when asked about the identity the Sharks had started to create with the wins over Tampa Bay and New Jersey. “It was a whole different team almost.”