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Sharks on the brink of
elimination
Blunders plentiful in 3-0 loss in Game
5
5/17/04 - by Mike Lee
What a
difference a day makes. Having thoroughly dominated the Calgary Flames on
Sunday, the Sharks returned to the not-so friendly confines of home on Monday
night and coughed up the series lead with an atrocious 3-0 loss in Game 5 at HP
Pavilion. Given the number of blunders the Sharks committed on home ice, they
should be grateful that they only surrendered three goals. The Flames have been
a model of consistency in San Jose, scoring two 1st period goals for the third
consecutive game. Those goals would allow the Flames to kick it into cruise
control and send the Sharks to the brink of elimination with a 3-2 lead in the
series.
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| CGY |
2 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
| SJ |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
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| 1st period - CGY,
J. IGINLA (9) , 06:27 CGY, M. NILSON (3) (V. NIEMINEN), 08:29 |
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| 2nd period - CGY,
C. CONROY (5) , 12:47 |
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| 1st period - CGY,
M. COMMODORE, 06:03 - Holding S.J, S. HANNAN, 12:18 - Interference -
Obstruction CGY, S. MONTADOR, 16:38 - Hooking |
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| 2nd period - S.J,
R. DAVISON, 05:27 - Hooking CGY, M. GELINAS, 14:54 - Hooking CGY, M. GELINAS,
18:59 - Cross check |
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| 3rd period - S.J,
T. HARVEY, 09:09 - Cross check |
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Shots |
Saves |
| CGY - Kiprusoff |
19 |
19 |
| SJ - Nabokov |
21 |
18 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| CGY |
12 |
4 |
5 |
21 |
| SJ |
6 |
9 |
4 |
19 |
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The boisterous crowd that welcomed the Sharks home from
their road triumphs in Calgary quickly turned on the Sharks after Jerome Iginla
and Marcus Nilson scored two minutes apart early in the opening period. Boos
rained down on the Sharks as they existed the ice at each intermission.
Contrary to the behavior displayed by the Neanderthals in Calgary,
Sharks fans elected to communicate their displeasure vocally, rather than with
flying beers. The controlled behavior was admirable considering the product the
Sharks put on the ice.
Things looked promising when Flames defenseman
Mike Commodore was whistled for holding six minutes into the contest, but the
evening went to hell in a hand basket 24 seconds into the penalty when
Alexander Korolyuk made an ill advised pass on the power play. Korolyuk tried
backhanding the puck from the left wing boards parallel to the blueline, but
Iginla stepped in front of the pass and raced up the ice with two defenders on
his heels.
Sharks goaltender Evgeni Nabokov panicked on the play and
committed to the rush by falling to the ice in an attempt to get wide on
Iginla. Problem was, Nabokov made the move too soon, allowing Iginla to easily
deposit the puck into the Sharks net.
Things turned even more sour two
minutes later when Niko Dimitrakos coughed up the puck in his own zone,
allowing the Flames to march up ice and score again. Ville Nieminen cycled near
the right dot before hitting a trailing Nilson who skated down the slot
uncontested and rifled a shot past Nabokov.
Dimitrakos made a bad
decision on the play and only added to the calamity by trying to hook Nieminen
rather than run him down. The young Sharks forward had little excuse to use his
jets, after being a scratch in Game 4 on Sunday.
Calgary would ice the
game with a goal on yet another turnover in the Flames zone in the 2nd period.
Craig Conroy grabbed a loose puck at the redline after a dump in attempt by the
Sharks wrapped around the end boards, then hopped over Kyle McLaren's stick.
Rather than hustle back to the puck, McLaren pouted for missing the
pass by slamming his stick on the ice and skating nonchalantly back to center
ice. While he ponder the pass that might have been, Conroy raced by him and
skated up ice uncontested before snapping a shot past Nabokov. The effort by
McLaren on the play was inexcusable.
The Flames had to do little more
than play keep away with the Sharks over the final 27 minutes of the game and
keep their noses clean. The game was absent of the shenanigans that marred the
end of Games 3 & 4 in Calgary.
San Jose only managed four shots on
goal in the final period, handing Miikka Kiprusoff his fourth shutout of the
playoffs.
Quotables
"It's definitely different, what we're
doing this year. I can't put my finger on why it's working out this way. I
don't think anybody can. It's kind of fun, though." - Jerome Iginla
"Where that performance came from, I really have no idea. It wasn't one
or two guys. It was almost the whole team struggling. You have to give Calgary
some credit, but we really did a pretty good job of shooting ourselves in the
foot with some very elementary mistakes." - Sharks head coach Ron
Wilson
"We didn't play hard, and I can't explain that. We've been
battling the odds ever since the beginning of the series, and we'll try to do
it again. There's a lot of things we can do better. We just have to keep
winning road games. That seems to be the trend." - Vincent
Damphousse
"Things change fast here.It's never fun when they pull you,
but when I got pulled, I was already thinking about today's game." - Miikka
Kiprusoff
"Their top line played really well in our building [in Game
4], so we said we've got to do the same thing in here. It feels a lot farther
away than just one win. We know we've got a lot of work to do." - Craig
Conroy
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