Recently, everyone has been getting their revenge on the San Jose Sharks. After San Jose won the first 4 meetings in the regular season against Dallas, they lost. After winning their last 8 regular season games against Minnesota, they lost. And now, after the Sharks had won the first 3 meetings against the Vancouver Canucks, they continued their trend, struggling once again offensively and losing 4 games in a row for the first time this season, as the Canucks defeated the Sharks 3-1.
The first period defined the game. The Sharks were being dominated in their own zone, being outshot 7-2 at one point in the period. 2 minutes into the game, Jody Shelley and Darcy Hordichuk dropped their gloves, but Shelley barely had time to react as Hordichuk jumped all over him and threw in a couple of rights and dropped Shelley onto the ice. The fight was so short that it wasn't even determined to be a fight; the referees gave both of them 2 minutes for roughing. Then, on a delayed penalty to San Jose on the 4 on 4, Alexander Edler shot the puck from the point past a screened Brian Boucher to give Vancouver the early 1-0 lead. Less than 3 minutes later, a bad defensive mix-up left Mats Sundin wide open in front of Boucher, and a quick move to his backhand had the San Jose goaltender out of position, and Sundin tapped it in for an easy goal for the 2-0 lead.
The Sharks started playing wellnear the end of the first period, but their offensive game was blocked by 4 straight penalties. There were blatant slashes and cross checks by several Canucks players, most noticeably Sundin, but all calls were against San Jose. But despite being outshot 15-8 in the second period, mostly because the Sharks were constantly killing penalties, San Jose got a late penalty and with 3 seconds left in the period, Joe Thorton found a loose puck in front of Roberto Luongo and backhanded it in to cut the lead in half 2-1.
Then, the Sharks came out of the locker room in the third period like they started the game. Vancouver dominated early on, but both teams played well defensively. The game opened up and skaters were going in and out of all three zones without any trouble, but many shots and passes were blocked and turned over to an attack going the other way. After offsetting penalties created the second 4 on 4 play of the game, Devin Setoguchi took a very bad holding penalty, skating straight towards a Vancouver defenseman and grabbing his head. The Canucks capitalized on their sixth power play attempt of the game, as Kevin Bieksa shot a puck right past Boucher's glove from the side wall to secure the win for Vancouver 3-1.
Brian Boucher started his 5th straight game. During the stretch, the Sharks went 1-3-1, allowing 15 goals while scoring only 9. Evgeni Nabokov, out with a lower body injury he suffered during practice on Tuesday, is expected to be back next Tuesday against the Minnesota Wild. Dan Boyle had a season-high 9 shots on goal in the game, and also led all skaters with over 30 minutes of ice time. Part of that was because Rob Blake, who assisted on Thorton's goal, took Devin Setoguchi's shot off his foot, which set up the Thorton goal. He took one shift early in the third period then left to the locker room. Vancouver's Ryan Kesler assisted on both first period goals. This was the 4th time in 7 games that San Jose has failed to score more than 1 goal, in which they went 2-4-1. With the win, Vancouver maintained their 2 point lead of 5th place over Columbus, while reducing Chicago's 4th place lead down to 6 points in the Western Conference standings. Despite the loss, San Jose is still tied for first in the West with Detroit, who lost today to Columbus. Boston leads the NHL with 95 points, 1 point ahead of San Jose and Detroit. San Jose's next game is at the Minnesota Wild, who they played Thursday night where they gave up a 3 goal lead, allowing 4 unanswered goals in an overtime loss.
No comments:
Post a Comment