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LAS VEGAS (AP) William Karlsson put a spectacular bow on a surprising Pacific Division championship for expansion Vegas.Karlsson scored a short-handed goal in the third period Cam Atkinson Jersey Kids , and the Golden Knights clinched the title with a 3-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night.”It’s a great feeling to win our division. Obviously, nobody had those expectations the first of the season,” coach Gerard Gallant said. ”A lot of things went right for us, a lot of guys played real well, a lot of guys had career years, so that’s why we’re here today.”Vegas (50-22-7) reached 50 wins in its inaugural season with its third victory in four games. San Jose (44-25-10) is second in the Pacific, four points ahead of Los Angeles.”It’s a great accomplishment, but we all know what the real accomplishment is gonna be,” Gallant said. ”A great regular season means a lot, but a great playoffs can mean a lot more.”For the second straight night, Karlsson scored a short-handed goal on a breakaway, this time with what might have been his sweetest of 42 goals this season – between his legs to beat Martin Jones top shelf for the game-winner.”I kind of had a great spot there to pull that move … it’s instinct, when you black out http://www.bluejacketsshoponline.com/authentic-david-savard-jersey , that’s usually when you do good – don’t overthink it,” Karlsson said. ”It was a great game, a lot of fun to play. It’s good to clinch not only the division, but the home advantage over the Pacific teams.”Shea Theodore and Oscar Lindberg also scored for the Golden Knights, and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 29 shots. Fleury improved to 29-12-4 this season and moved into sole possession of 11th place on the career wins list with 404 victories.”This is obviously a nice feeling, to do this at home, in front of our fans, you know they’ve been so great to us all season long,” Fleury said. ”I’m very proud of these guys, the way they’ve played all season long. To have an expansion team win the division in our first year, I think it’s pretty cool.”Jones made 35 saves. The Sharks had allowed fewer than 30 shots in eight of their previous 15 games.Joe Pavelski and Marc-Edouard Vlasic scored for San Jose, which has dropped three in a row.The Sharks, who went 10-4-1 in March Anthony Duclair Jersey Womens , will have to wait until Tuesday to try to clinch a playoff berth for the 13th time in 14 years.”You’re going to come in here and win in this rink in this time of year, you’re going to have to bring your A-plus game, and I thought we were B tonight,” coach Peter DeBoer said. ”Just not good enough at certain moments and we probably got what we deserved.”Vegas struck early in the first period. Theodore took a pass from Karlsson at the point and sent a wrist shot past Jones at 2:21.Pavelski tied it when he fired a rebound into an open net at 7:14 while Fleury was still recovering from making a save at the other side of the goal.Lindberg got the lead back for Vegas when he redirected Theodore’s shot from the point past Jones 3:03 into the second. But Vlasic tied it midway through the period when he backhanded home a rebound that came off Vegas defender Brayden McNabb’s knee.NOTES: In a pregame ceremony, the Golden Knights retired No. 58, raising a banner with 58 stars and the names of the lives lost in the Oct. 1 concert shooting. … The 18,458 in attendance was the largest crowd of Vegas’ inaugural season. … Vegas’ James Neal played in his 700th career game, while teammate Jonathan Marchessault played in his 200th game. … San Jose’s Joonas Donskoi played in his 200th career game. … San Jose, which has the league’s second-best penalty kill, denied Vegas’ four power-play opportunities, and hasn’t allowed a power-play goal in 16 of its last 18 contests. … The Golden Knights improved to 33-5-2 record when scoring the first goal of the game.UP NEXTSharks: Host Dallas on Tuesday.Golden Knights: Visit Vancouver on Tuesday. Shandor Alphonso never envisioned his hockey career taking him to officiating. He didn’t have to look far to see it was possible.As a young, black player, all Alphonso had to do was watch ”Hockey Night in Canada” or the Stanley Cup Final and he saw fellow minority Jay Sharrers working as a linesman.”To be able to see someone who kind of looked like me working at the biggest stage of his job Womens Josh Anderson Jersey , it was unreal,” Alphonso said.The 34-year-old Alphonso is the NHL’s only African-American official, and Calgary Flames assistant Paul Jerrard is the league’s only black coach. With the sport’s expansion to some nontraditional markets across the United States, there are almost two dozen black players in the NHL, but Sharrers, Alphonso and Jerrard serve as inspiration for more to follow into positions of authority.”I think it’s an evolutionary process,” said Sharrers, who recently retired. ”It’s definitely moved slowly, but I think when you just look at the amount of black players that are now in the league and the fact that that has increased, it would stand to reason that hopefully the opportunity for officials would present itself.”Sixty years after Willie O’Ree of the Boston Bruins broke the color barrier as the NHL’s first black player, the league is still taking steps to increase its diversity. Alphonso is an ambassador for the ”Hockey is for Everyone” campaign this month, which is Black History Month.Sharrers acknowledged the expense of playing hockey has been a hurdle for minority children for years, but said he is optimistic that more will not only lace up their skates but move into other roles.”It just stands to reason that that would be a natural progression Chris Kreider Jersey , that there would more officials of color,” Sharrers said. ”The league has been very proactive since they partnered with Willie and created the diversity taskforce almost 20 years ago to expose and to present to people of color that hockey is a great game and it’s a viable opportunity.”Opportunities have existed for minorities to get into coaching and officiating, though the majority have ended up as goaltending coaches like former NHL goalie Fred Brathwaite. Jerrard played five games in the NHL and then went into coaching, where he’s a visible role model – even if that’s not a role he was looking for.”I’m just another coach who’s trying to do a good job in the league and stay in the league,” said Jerrard, 52, who has been an assistant with the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Flames along with several American Hockey League teams. ”I guess I am now in a little bit of a position of a role model, but my drive to be a role model isn’t due to the color of my skin. It’s just the way I wanted carry myself as a human being, the way I want to be looked at: doing the right thing and working hard.”Jerrard hopes kids seeing minorities on the ice playing or officiating or behind the bench coaching shows that ”if they’re skilled, driven and passionate, there’s an opportunity for them.”That’s what happened for Alphonso, who knew he wasn’t going to make it to the NHL as a player and wanted to stay in the game. He thought to himself Henrik Lundqvist Jersey Kids , ”If Jay Sharrers can do it, I could do it” and followed him up the ranks.Now Alphonso is the one kids can look up to, and Sharrers – who became the NHL’s first black referee in 2001 – believes his younger counterpart can have an even bigger impact.”Being that his skin is a lot darker than mine and I’m very light-skinned, it wouldn’t register necessarily with someone unless they knew my background to know that I was a person of color,” Sharrers said. ”I think for him having both parents being black and being much more of a visible minority, if you will, I think that’s definitely a role that he will now assume.”Alphonso welcomes that position and would love to one day meet a fellow official he inspired to go that route.”It’s huge for younger kids to see there are way more things to hockey than just being a hockey player,” Alphonso said. ”That’s hopefully what we can inspire these kids to do and get them more involved with the game down the road.”—