OpTic Texas defeated Los Angeles Thieves in a battle of 4-0 teams to move to the top of the standings in qualifying for the Call of Duty League Stage 2 Major on Saturday.

In other second-day action of Week 3 competition, G2 Minnesota edged Riyadh Falcons, Toronto KOI beat Miami Heretics and Carolina Royal Ravens defeated Vancouver Surge.

The 12 Call of Duty League teams are playing a full qualifying round robin to determine seeding for the second major of the season, to be held March 27-29 in Marston Green, England, as part of the DreamHack Birmingham event.

The top six teams in qualifying head straight into the Stage 2 Major playoffs, while the teams in seventh through 10th place will compete in a play-in round.

The Stage 2 Major champion will receive $150,000 and 100 Call of Duty League points, while the runner-up will get $90,000 and 75 CDL points.

After Los Angeles Thieves claimed an opening 250-238 Den Hardpoint victory, OpTic Texas won the next three to claim a 3-1 victory. A 6-2 Exposure Search and Destroy triumph was followed by a 4-2 Den Overload win before the result was clinched with a 250-173 Colossus Hardpoint triumph.

In Saturday’s first match, G2 Minnesota won the final two games to come away with a 3-2 win. Riyadh opened with a 250-229 Scar Hardpoint victory and took a 2-1 lead with a 5-0 Scar Overload win. G2 leveled it at 1 with a 6-1 Raid Search and Destroy win, tied it at 2 with a convincing 250-134 Colossus Hardpoint victory and won the deciding Colossus Search and Destroy game 6-3.

Toronto finished a sweep of Miami with 250-182 Hardpoint, 6-4 Search and Destroy and 4-2 Overload victories, all on the Den map.

Carolina also swept Vancouver for its second victory in as many days after a 1-3 start. After opening with a 250-186 Blackheart Hardpoint win and following with a 6-2 Den Search and Destroy victory, the team closed out the win with an 8-2 Exposure Overload win.

The weekend schedule:

Sunday

–Toronto KOI vs. Paris Gentle Mates

–FaZe Vegas vs. Boston Breach

–Miami Heretics vs. Cloud9 New York

–Vancouver Surge vs. OpTic Texas

Call of Duty League Stage 2 Major qualifiers standings (match record, map differential)

1. OpTic Texas, 5-0, +11

2. Los Angeles Thieves, 4-1, +8

3. Paris Gentle Mates, 3-1, +5

4. G2 Minnesota, 3-2, +1

5. Riyadh Falcons, 3-3, +2

6. Carolina Royal Ravens, 3-3, -1

7. FaZe Vegas, 2-3, 0

8. Toronto KOI, 2-3, -2

9. Miami Heretics, 1-3, -4

10.. Vancouver Surge, 1-3, -6

11. Cloud9 New York, 1-3, -7

12. Boston Breach, 1-4, -7

–Field Level Media

Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy has just one simple request for his team heading into Sunday afternoon’s game at Pittsburgh.

Start on time.

The three-week Olympic break did little to help the Golden Knights recharge and snap a season-long habit of poor starts. Vegas has been outscored 5-1 in the first two periods in its first two games of a five-game road trip coming out of the break.

The good news is that the Pacific Division leaders have earned a split of those two contests, scoring five goals in the third period to pull out a 6-4 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday, followed by a 3-2 setback to the Washington Capitals on Friday night.

Vegas trailed 3-0 heading into the final 20 minutes against the Capitals, managing just 13 total shots on goal during the first two periods. This despite the fact that five of its top players — center Jack Eichel, captain Mark Stone, forward Mitch Marner and defensemen Shea Theodore and Noah Hanifin — had been given Wednesday’s game off to help recuperate after playing in the Olympics. Those five players combined for just one assist, by Marner.

“They had plenty of rest, to be honest,” Cassidy said after Friday’s game when asked if the five players may have been battling fatigue after the long trip back from Italy. “They’re going to need to be better Sunday. Those are our best players, our leaders, and we expect them to play like that.

“They weren’t on time,” the coach continued. “We tried to give them rest. Hopefully, it pays off on Sunday, and next week, and whatnot. Tonight, it didn’t.”

Eichel and Hanifin had spent Tuesday at the White House with the gold medal-winning U.S. team and then stayed in D.C. for a couple of days of rest while Stone, Theodore and Hanifin spent their free time in Las Vegas before flying east on Thursday to join the team.

Cassidy, who has taken some of the blame in the past for slow starts, didn’t this time.

“We weren’t ready to play,” he said. “Coach has to prepare your team to play, but this one the players weren’t ready to play. They’re professionals. They’ve got to be ready to go. And we weren’t nearly good enough.”

Vegas had several chances down the stretch to tie the game, but Washington goalie Logan Thompson stopped a Brayden McNabb short-handed breakaway and followed that up by making a grade-A stop on a close-in try by Marner.

“We’re always going to respond,” Cassidy said. “I’ve said that many times, and we did it again tonight. Good for us to play 20 minutes. That’s the thing, right? We play 20 minutes and almost win a hockey game. Imagine if we played 40 or 45?”

Pittsburgh will be playing the second game of a back-to-back that began with a 3-2 shootout loss to the host New York Rangers on Saturday afternoon. The Penguins, who got goals from Anthony Mantha and Ryan Shea, blew a 2-0 second-period lead and fell to 1-8 in shootouts, the worst mark in the NHL among teams who have played in four or more shootouts this season.

Vincent Trocheck scored the lone shootout goal for the Rangers, with all three Pittsburgh players failing to convert.

“We’ve continued to work on it. We’ll continue to look at it,” Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse said of his team’s shootout woes. “It just hasn’t been good. It’s on all of us. We’ve got to keep looking at ways we can get better at it. We’ve tried some different guys, we’ve tried some different things, but the results are what they are.”

The Penguins, who are 8-1-2 since Jan. 19, remained in a tie for second place with the New York Islanders in the Metropolitan Division at 73 points.

“It’s a tough game, but we look (to) tomorrow, play back-to-back against Vegas, a good team, great challenge,” forward Evgeni Malkin said. “Back home. We play hard. I’m not saying anything bad tonight. We played hard.”

–Field Level Media

After snapping a five-game losing streak, the San Jose Sharks will look to make it two straight wins and keep pace in the playoff race when they host the Winnipeg Jets on Sunday.

The Sharks are coming off a 5-4 home win against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday. Their two-goal lead after the first period was narrowed to one in the middle frame and then erased early in the third. They regained the advantage a few minutes later before conceding the tying goal yet again in less than two minutes.

Defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin then delivered the tie-breaking tally just over two minutes after the equalizer to snap San Jose’s skid (0-4-1). That pulled the team within five points of the second wild card in the Western Conference held by the Seattle Kraken, who beat the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday.

“I thought we did some really good things,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “Like our first (period). Did some good things in the second. Obviously, (the Oilers are) a good team, and they’re going to push, and they did that in the third period of the game. Obviously, (it) opened up a little bit too much of our liking, but we found a way to win a hockey game.”

The rebuilding Sharks have been a surprise team in the playoff mix, hovering in and out of a postseason spot. Though the future is expected to be bright for the Northern California squad, led by young star Macklin Celebrini, it wasn’t expected to be in playoff contention just yet.

“I learned a lot while I was (with Team Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games) over there just being around our coaches, some of the best coaches in the league, and some of the best players in the world,” Celebrini said. “Just their mentality, some of the things that they preach. … the message around our locker room over there, I think I can bring some of that back and just know what it takes.”

Unlike San Jose, Winnipeg was expected to be among the postseason participants after a Presidents’ Trophy-winning campaign last season.

Instead, the Jets find themselves 10 points out of a playoff spot, in 12th place in the Western Conference and 27th in the NHL overall.

Their most recent outing was yet another disappointment in a season full of them, falling 5-4 in overtime to the host Anaheim Ducks on Friday. The Jets held a 2-0 lead early in the second period and a 3-1 advantage early in the third before Anaheim scored three unanswered to pull ahead.

Winnipeg’s Kyle Connor scored late to tie it at 4-4, but Anaheim’s Chris Kreider notched the winner with 13 seconds remaining in overtime.

“We had the two-goal lead twice and gave that up,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “But at the end of the day, we had some leads that we should have found a way to bring home. I mean, we stuck with it, and obviously the 6-on-5 goal was big at the end. We got a point out of it.”

The Jets know they’ll have to be better against the Sharks.

“It’s a young team that’s going to try and push the pace,” Arniel said. “We have to be smart in how we approach them.”

–Field Level Media