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Sharks clinch playoff spot with
emphasis
San Jose dismantles Stars
There was plenty of opportunity to be distracted on
Thursday night at HP Pavilion. With a chance to clinch a playoff spot against a
Dallas Stars lineup that stirred the pot in Texas two weeks ago, the Sharks
decided to ignore all the noise and play hockey. The result was a 6-0
dismantling of the Stars, who are fading in the race to finish as one of the
top eight teams in the Western Conference. Patrick Marleau scored a pair of
goals and Antti Niemi stopped 29 shots he faced to record his 6th shutout of
the season.
When the smoke cleared, the Sharks were celebrating a trip
to the Stanley Cup playoffs. It's the seventh consecutive year the Sharks have
qualified for the NHL's second season.
Collectively, the Sharks put a
season high 52 shots on goal. All that rubber was divided between starting
goaltender Kari Lehtonen and Andrew Raycroft, who was summoned in the 3rd
period after the Sharks put four pucks past Lehtonen.
"We were a
little concerned coming off the four day layoff, but I think we came out and
were obviously energized and the guys used the four days to their advantage,"
said Sharks head coach Todd McLellan.
That was the understatement of
the evening.
San Jose simply dominated the reeling Stars from the
opening faceoff to the final horn. In addition to Marleau's offensive outburst,
two Sharks defenseman, Dan Boyle and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, scored goals.
Those expecting the shenanigans from the March 15th Sharks-Stars game
to carry over to Thursday night's game, may have been the only people to leave
HP Pavilion disappointed. The remainder of the sellout crowd had plenty to
cheer about.
Boyle was the only contributor to the score sheet in the
opening period, converting his 7th goal of the season. The defenseman punched
home a deflection after Joe Pavelski took a long feed from Kyle Wellwood up the
left wide before putting a spin-o-rama move on defenseman Jeff Woywitka and
getting a shot off on Lehtonen. Boyle pinched from his defensive position to
cash in after Lehtonen left the puck unattended out in front of his net.
The Sharks would get another goal of the impressive variety 4:30 into
the 2nd period, when Logan Couture gloved a deflection out of the air, dropped
it to the ice and snapped home his 31st goal of the season. Ryane Clowe had put
a shot on Lehtonen from the slot, but the puck deflected up in the air,
rainbowing to the bottom of the left circle as Couture came crashing in on net.
The goal tied Couture with the New York Islanders forward Michael
Grabner for the rookie goal scoring lead.
The penalty bug would bite
the Sharks, who sent three players to the box on separate infractions over a
seven minute span. The penalty kill did its job, killing off all three Stars
power plays.
Vlasic helped pad the blueline scoring totals for the
year by ripping a shot from the left point at 18:25, that hit Lehtonen before
trickling over the goal line.
With the playoffs approaching, the
Sharks cut their teeth on putting teams away in the 3rd period by putting 21
shots on Dallas in the final period. In the process, they also scored three
more goals to turn the game into a laugher.
Marleau scored the first
of his two goals 2:30 into the final period by taking a Jamal Mayers feed at
center ice and blowing past Woywitka on his way to the net. The centerman
snapped a shot from the slot, beating Lehtonen high to the glove side.
The goal would also end Lehtonen's evening. Things didn't get much better for
Raycroft.
Marleau scored his team high 35th goal ten minutes
later, lifting a backhand chance past Raycroft from the doorstep. Dany Heatley
fought off two defenders in the left corner, before chipping the puck along the
end boards to Joe Thornton who setup Marleau's goal with a pass from behind the
Stars net.
The goal came on Marleau's 12th shot of the game, setting a
new team record.
Ben Eager punctuated the evening with one of those
"did you see that" goals that come along once or twice a season. Skating up the
left wing, Mayers sent a diagonal pass to Eager on the off wing, but the pass
was behind the burly forward. Eager reached back with his stick, deflecting the
puck through his legs to his forehand, before sliding a shot past Raycroft for
his 6th goal of the season.
Woywitka was the victim of Eager's heroics
and would finish the game with a team low -3 plus-minus, but Eager's goal
punctuated the defenseman's rough night.
"Unbelievable," said Couture.
"I was in shock for a little while. I think I said 'wow' about fifty times.
He's a skilled player, even though he's a fourth line player. He does a lot and
we see it sometimes in practice. It was a great play, then only play he really
had. The puck was passed behind him, so to think to bring it through his legs
like that was pretty cool."
Niemi wasn't exactly bored in net, facing
a double digit shots in the first two periods, but the Stars rarely challenged
him.
We knew they were going to throw pucks behind the net and come
for rebounds," said Niemi. "The D[efense] played great in front of me."
San Jose leap-frogged the Detroit Red Wings into the 2nd seed in the
West with the victory. With six games remaining in the regular season, the
Stars are slowly seeing their chances of extending their season die a slow
death. Dallas trails Chicago by three points for the 8th seed, but they've gone
2-4-4 in their last ten games.
"No excuses for us," said Stars head
coach Marc Crawford. "We got beat and we got beat soundly tonight."
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| DAL |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| SJ |
1 |
2 |
3 |
6 |
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| 1st period - 1, SJ,
Boyle 7 (Pavelski, Wellwood), 16:12. |
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| 2nd period - 2, SJ,
Couture 31 (Clowe, Heatley), 4:30, (pp). 3, SJ, Vlasic 3 (Thornton, Setoguchi),
18:25. |
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| 3rd period - 4, SJ,
Marleau 34 (Mayers, White), 2:30. 5, SJ, Marleau 35 (Thornton, Heatley), 12:26.
6, SJ, Eager 6 (Mayers, Vlasic), 14:18. |
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| 1st period - Woywitka,
DAL (roughing), 19:56. |
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| 2nd period - Daley, DAL
(hooking), 3:26; Thornton, SJ (hooking), 7:17; Mayers, SJ (high sticking),
10:06; Setoguchi, SJ (tripping), 13:56. |
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| 3rd period - Bench, DAL
(too many men), 8:43. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| DAL - Lehtonen |
33 |
29 |
| DAL - Raycroft |
19 |
17 |
| SJ - Niemi |
29 |
29 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| DAL |
10 |
11 |
8 |
29 |
| SJ |
14 |
17 |
21 |
52 |
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| Referees: Walkom,
Meier. Linesmen: Gibbs, Racicot. |
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