The San Jose Sharks are probably glad they don't have to face the Phoenix Coyotes in the playoffs. The Sharks, who clinched the Western Conference earlier in the day as Detroit lost to Nashville in a shootout, had a chance to wrap up the President's Trophy with a win against the Coyotes in their final home game of the season. But Wayne Gretzky's Coyotes outworked the Sharks for 55 of the 60 minutes, and defeated San Jose 4-1, becoming the only team this season to hand San Jose 3 of their 28 losses.
The Sharks had a great start to the game, putting the pressure on rookie goaltender Al Montoya and outshot the Coyotes 5 to 1 in the first 5 minutes. But then the Coyotes registered their second shot on goal, and took over the game entirely. Right off a faceoff win, Scottie Upshall found the bouncing puck and quickly shot it to the far side of Evgeni Nabokov, who couldn't react in time to the shot to make the save, and Phoenix had a 1-0 lead. Then after Dan Boyle took a holding penalty during a double minor penalty kill, Ed Jovanovski blasted a shot from the point that Nabokov never saw through a screen, and the Coyotes took a 2-0 lead at the end of the first courtesy of a 5 on 3 power play.
4 minutes into the second period, the Sharks continued to turn the puck over in their own defensive zone, failing to clear the puck past the blue line. Zbynek Michalek was the recipient of another failed clearing attempt by San Jose, setting up a shot from in between the faceoff circles and roofed it over Nabokov's glove to increase Phoenix's lead to 3-0.
Late in the third period, the Sharks threatened to at least make a competition out of the final 8 minutes. Good forechecking by San Jose's third line led to a Mike Grier wraparound attempt from behind the net. Montoya stopped the puck, but the Coyote defenders could not stop Travis Moen from jamming the puck over the goaltender's stretched legs, and San Jose got on the board. But when San Jose started finally getting some offensive rhythm late in the game, Peter Mueller and Scottie Upshall had a 2-on-1 rush right after a penalty kill, and Upshall made a perfect pass to Mueller who redirected the puck under Nabokov's pads and sealed the win 4-1.
Al Montoya, a first round draft of the Phoenix Coyotes, made 40 saves on 41 shots. Nabokov only faced 17 shots, but only stopped 13 of them. San Jose had multiple attempts to try and get back into the game since early in the second period, as they were the recipients of 6 straight power plays. But Phoenix killed off all 6, part of which was due to their shot-blocking, as the Coyotes blocked 28 shots in the game compared to San Jose's 10. Despite the loss, an earlier loss in the shootout by Detroit meant that San Jose clinched the Western Conference, securing home ice advantage for the first 3 of 4 rounds in the Stanley Cup playoffs. But a Boston win earlier in the day means that San Jose will have to defeat Los Angeles on Saturday, or have the Bruins lose one of their remaining two games in regulation (or both in overtime), in order to win the President's Trophy as the team with the highest point total in the league. San Jose welcomed back more of their injured starters, as Patrick Marleau and Ryane Clowe returned from injury to play in the final two games before the playoffs. Their rust was visible during several instances in the game, however. San Jose's final game will be a road game on Saturday against the Kings as they have one last attempt to control their own destiny and secure the President's Trophy before the playoffs begin.
No comments:
Post a Comment