Zdeno Chara broke the NHL record for games by a defenseman Thursday night.

Jonathan Marchessault scored twice and the Vegas Golden Knights became the first NHL team to clinch a playoff berth, beating the San Jose Sharks 5-2 for their eighth straight victory.

(AP Photo/Tony Avelar)The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world:___The Atlantic Coast Conference will expand use of KINEXON SafeTag contact tracing devices by equipping players, coaches and Tier 1 personnel for its upcoming men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. SafeTags measure proximity between users to provide school medical officials with contact tracing data when an individual tests positive for COVID-19. All 15 ACC schools used the devices inside team facilities during the regular season to mitigate the spread of the virus. An ACC release stated that the technology identified several high-risk close contacts of a positive case within the league. Bars, restaurants and music venues will also be able to close two hours later, at 2 a.m., instead of at midnight.

Zdeno Chara is no longer in Boston after the Bruins captain signed with Washington. And the Sabres made an even bigger splash in free agency by landing 2018 NHL MVP Taylor Hall in October. Hall, for example, signed a one-year, $8 million deal with Buffalo by realizing the free-agent market was going to be tight. Oilers general manager Ken Holland chalked it up to the new economic realities facing the NHL. “It’s salary-cap related, which is related to the pandemic, which has given us a hard, flat cap for the foreseeable future,” Holland said.

(AP Photo/Andy Clayton-King, File)The Minnesota Wild traded goalie Devan Dubnyk and forward Ryan Donato to the San Jose Sharks in two separate deals on Monday, continuing their makeover under general manager Bill Guerin. The Sharks sent their fifth-round pick in the 2022 draft for Dubnyk and also received Minnesota's 2022 seventh-rounder in return. The Wild now own two 2021 picks from the Penguins, who traded next year's first-rounder to Minnesota for forward Jason Zucker. Donato, who is the son of former Bruins stalwart Ted Donato, has 29 goals and 28 assists in 130 career NHL games. The 26-year-old Soucy had seven goals, seven assists and a team-leading plus-16 rating in 55 games in his first full NHL season.