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Pacific Division
Champions
Sharks wrap up regular season road
schedule with 3-0 win in LA
3/31/04 - by Mike
Lee
The Pacific Division crown was past to the San Jose Sharks
on Wednesday night after the defending division champion Dallas Stars lost to
Edmonton 3-1 in Dallas. The Sharks celebrated by wrapping up the last regular
season road game with a 3-0 win over the host Los Angeles Kings at the Staples
Center. In doing so they set team records for most road wins in a season (19),
road points (46) and overall points (102). With two games to play they can
extend their overall points record, and potentially finish with the second best
record in the NHL this season.
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| SJ |
0 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
| LA |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
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| 2nd period - S.J,
A. MCCAULEY (18) (A. KOROLYUK, N. EKMAN), 10:10 S.J, N. DIMITRAKOS (8) (B.
STUART, K. MCLAREN), 10:39 |
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| 3rd period - S.J,
A. MCCAULEY (18) (N. EKMAN, A. KOROLYUK), 17:56 |
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| 1st period - S.J,
K. MCLAREN, 04:33 - Hooking L.A, S. AVERY, 08:49 - Misconduct (10 min) L.A, S.
AVERY, 08:49 - Cross check |
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| 3rd period - S.J,
J. MARSHALL, 01:22 - Roughing S.J, A. KOROLYUK, 02:30 - Hooking S.J, N.
DIMITRAKOS, 07:08 - Hooking L.A, A. MILLER, 13:13 - Tripping |
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Shots |
Saves |
| SJ - Nabokov |
22 |
22 |
| LA - Chechmanek |
24 |
22 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| SJ |
8 |
10 |
7 |
25 |
| LA |
5 |
4 |
13 |
22 |
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The Sharks also secured the 2nd seed in the West with
the victory and Colorado's overtime loss to Minnesota. As the standings sit,
the Sharks would face the St Louis Blues, who hold the 7th seed in the Western
Conference, although they are tied with Edmonton (both teams have 89 points).
Nashville could still squeeze into the picture, especially considering that the
Oilers only have one game remaining and St Louis has three to play. The Calgary
Flames hold the 6th seed, just three points ahead of St Louis with two to play.
This was all irrelevant to the Sharks, who took care of business by
outlasting the Kings in a sloppy contest. Alyn McCauley became the 5th Sharks
player to record 20 goals this season with a pair of tallies. Evgeni Nabokov
recorded his 30th win of the season and notched his ninth shutout of the year.
The Sharks struck for two goals 29 seconds apart midway through the
2nd period then held on for their 42nd win of the season.
McCauley
opened the scoring with a goal at 10:10 of the middle stanza by tapping in a
rebound after Alexander Korolyuk tried jamming a shot past Kings goaltender
Roman Chechmanek. Korolyuk tried busting in on the right post, but he couldn't
get the puck past the Kings netminder. All McCauley had to do was tap in the
puck as it trickled across the crease to the opposite post.
Niko
Dimitrakos followed up less than 30 seconds later with his ninth goal of the
season. Brad Stuart made a nice centering pass as he crossed his own blueline,
catching the Kings defense off guard. Dimitrakos took the bullet just outside
the Kings blueline before racing in on Chechmanek and snapping a wrist shot top
shelf.
The Kings had a chance to cut into the Sharks lead early in the
3rd period when Jason Marshall and Korolyuk took penalties a minute apart. The
Sharks penalty killers buckled down and refused to let the Kings even get a
shot off.
McCauley would add an empty netter late in the game after
Kings head coach Andy Murray pulled Chechmanek with just over two minutes to
play in regulation.
Quotables
"You're always looking for
something different to motivate yourselves. We could finish second overall in
the league," he said. "We certainly did not set out for this at the beginning
of the year, but once you get yourself in a position, we went on the attack." -
Sharks head coach Ron Wilson
"We've surprised a lot of people and even
ourselves a little bit. Especially coming off last year and not making the
playoffs by a fair bit. We thought we had a good team coming into training
camp, but we exceeded expectations. Nobody thought we would be battling for
first." - Kyle McLaren
"The bottom line when you are a kid and you
dream of playing in the NHL, if somebody would say to you you're going to play
the last three games with the L.A. Kings even though they are not in the
playoffs, you would play all out. You would give everything that you have. I
think that is where we have to be as a team." - Luc Robitaille
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