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The road continues to be a
haven
Sharks win third straight game with 4-1 win in
Winnipeg
The road continues to be a safe haven for the
Sharks this season. Even skating against a team that beat them soundly at SAP
Center ten days earlier, San Jose played another solid road game, scoring a
couple of goals, then clamping down defensively to stymie the host Winnipeg
Jets on Tuesday night. The Sharks misfired on 5 of 6 chances on the power play,
but converted on a big chance late in the game to secure a 4-1 victory at MTS
Centre in Saskatchewan.
Skating against the most penalized team in the
NHL, the Sharks could have made things mush easier on themselves had they
converted on the bushel of power play chances they knew were coming. Special
teams has been a point of emphasis for the Sharks in December and January after
they plummeted in the league rankings in both the power play and penalty kill
through the first two months of the season.
After climbing their way
back to 10th in penalty kill rankings, the three goals Calgary scored on the
man-advantage bumped the Sharks 7 places down the ladder. Not converting early
in the game made things a little tougher than it should have. The penalty kill
also came up short early.
Chris Tierney staked the Sharks to a
short-lived 1-0 lead 15:18 into the opening period after Dustin Byfuglien
turned the puck over at center ice. The Jets defenseman made a half-hearted
attempt to move the puck with a backhand that hit Tierney in the midsection
while Winnipeg was on a power play. Tierney scooped it up and skated into the
Jets zone before cutting across the slot from right to left and whipping a shot
past Connor Hellebuyck.
That power play continue and the Jets
responded 23 seconds later. After winning a faceoff in the Jets zone, the
Sharks dropped the puck back to the right point where Justin Braun whiffed on a
chance to move the puck toward the Winnipeg zone. Drew Stafford picked up the
puck and raced up the left wing before sliding a pass to Nikolaj Ehlers on the
right wing. Ehlers beat Patrick Marleau to the spot where Stafford's pass ended
up. With the period winding down, the Sharks took advantage of the Jets defense
when Joe Pavelski hit Tomas Hertl with a long pass to the Jets blueline. Hertl
raced past Tyler Myers to get a shot on net from the Jets doorstep. Heelbuyck
stopped the shot, but Joe Thornton chipped home the rebound after Toby Enstrom
overskated the puck.
Tyler Myers put his team in a hole by responding
to a check by Tommy Wingels by cross checking the Sharks forward in the back of
the head earning a major penalty and a game misconduct. The Jets appeared to
overcome the penalty when Blake Wheeler scored after goaltender Alex Stalock
inexplicably tried to play a puck 15 feet out of his net. Wheeler gained
control of the puck behind the Sharks net, and deposited it into the Sharks
goal, but officials deemed that he tripped the Sharks netminder to negate the
goal.
Boos rained down on referees Chris Rooney and Brad
Watson, but the fact was it was a trip and the call was the right one.
The bigger issue for San Jose was how they allowed the Jets to create a scoring
chance on such a lengthy power play with a one-goal lead. Braun's gaff earlier
in the game should have been a point of emphasis for the Sharks when it came to
details on the power play.
By virtue of Wheeler's penalty, the Sharks
were now skating with a two-man advantage for a full two minutes. That did
little to motivate the Sharks who couldn't get out of 1st gear.
Sharks
head coach Peter DeBoer called a timeout to wake up his special teams unit,
complete with his scowl that finally got his skaters moving.
Joe
Pavelski converted with 16 seconds left before the 5-on-3 expired, pumping a
one-timer from the left side after Logan Couture slid a pass from the slot. The
tally was Pavelski's 22nd of the season.
Winnipeg was forced to pull
Hellebuyck in an attempt to get back into the game, but that setup a Joel Ward
empty-net goal.
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Feeder Forums |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| SJ |
2 |
0 |
2 |
4 |
| WPG |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
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| 1st period - 1, SJ,
Tierney 4 (unassited), 15:18, (sh). 2, WPG, Ehlers 7 (Stafford), 15:41, (pp).
3, SJ, Thornton 9 (unassisted), 19:13. |
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| 3rd period - 4, SJ,
Pavelski 22 (Couture, Burns), 15:59, (pp). 5, SJ, Ward 13 (), 19;06, (en). |
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| 1st period - Brown, SJ
(fighting major), 8:43; Stuart, WPG (fighting major), 8:43; Enstrom, WPG
(holding), 9:08; Wingels, SJ (hooking), 14:30; Lowry, WPG (cross checking),
20:00. |
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| 2nd period - Stuart, WPG
(delay of game - puck over glass), 1:50; Martin, SJ (tripping), 15:42; Dillon,
SJ (fighting major), 17:47; Ladd, WPG (fighting major), 17:47. |
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| 3rd period - Nieto, SJ
(hooking), 3:37; Stuart, WPG (roughing), 8:32; Myers, WPG (cross checking
major), 12:55; Myers, WPG (10 min misconduct), 12:55; Wheeler, WPG (tripping),
14:12. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| SJ - Stalock |
22 |
21 |
| WPG - Hellebuyck |
26 |
23 |
| WPG - empty net |
1 |
0 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| SJ |
11 |
6 |
10 |
27 |
| WPG |
7 |
8 |
7 |
22 |
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| Referees: Rooney,
Watson. Linesmen: Rody, Alphonso. |
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