Sharks Continue Strong Play, Beat Avalanche 3-0

The Colorado Avalanche had not won a Stanley Cup since Claude Lemieux's last season with the Avalanche.  Tonight, he returned to his former team for the first time since coming out of retirement, as the San Jose Sharks tried to continue playing game-winning hockey as they began their first game of the second half of the season in Colorado.  The Sharks got their legs moving early and shutout the Avalanche 3-0.

Special teams play was the difference early.  Milan Michalek scored the first goal of the game with 30 seconds left on a Colorado penalty after putting a nice pass from Christian Ehrhoff behind the net past Andrew Raycroft.  Alexei Semenov made his presence felt in the first period, as he threw two hard checks on David Jones, who later had to leave the game with an elbow injury after taking a third hard check from Douglas Murray.  The hits prompted Cody McLeod to high stick Semenov and draw some blood, leading to a 4 minute power play for the Sharks.  The penalty carried into the second period and although it was killed off, Michalek took advantage of Colorado's attempt to get their penalty kill unit off the ice and wristed a shot past Raycroft's blocker.  The Avalanche then took over the game offensively, and they were outshooting the Sharks for most of the second period.  Evgeni Nabokov kept the puck out, making several saves while sprawled on the ice, and several good defensive sticks from San Jose defensemen kept pucks out of wide open nets.  San Jose then began outshooting Colorado near the end of the second, putting 9 consecutive shots on goal, but Raycroft played well throughout the game, ending with 35 saves on 37 shots.  In the third, the Sharks began playing defensive hockey, and Patrick Marleau took advantage of Colorado pulling their goaltender as he scored the empty netter to seal the game.  Nabokov held on in the last 30 seconds and posted his 43rd career shutout, stopping all 31 shots he faced.

San Jose Sharks coach Todd McLellon said before the game that the goal of the Sharks was to continue playing their style of hockey.  "We aren't going to change the game," he said.  "But we are going to try to improve it, slowly."  The Sharks had a new look on their power play, with Rob Blake coming back after missing two games with a jaw injury when he took a shot to the face in the Detroit game two weeks ago.  San Jose was without their All-Star defenseman Dan Boyle, however, as he suffered what was described to be a lower body injury during the All-Star game.  The injury is not thought to be serious, and he is listed as day-to-day.  To compensate for the loss, the Sharks had Joe Pavelski and Marc-Edouard Vlasic playing the defensive positions on the first power play and Blake paired with Ehrhoff on the second.  The lack of Boyle seemed to impact the Sharks greatly, especially throughout the second period where they were mostly playing defensive hockey as they could not advance the puck into Colorado's zone until late in the period.  The Sharks were wearing their new BlackArmor third jerseys, despite being on the road.  Normally the jerseys are worn for Thursday night home games.