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Wings stun Sharks with mother
of a comeback
SJ blows 2-goal lead in the 3rd, back
to Detroit for Game 6
The San Jose Sharks skated like a team destined to
take a deciding fourth win in their Western Conference Semi Final series
against the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday night for 41 minutes. Problem is,
hockey games are 60 minutes. After taking a commanding 3-1 lead a minute into
the 3rd period, the Sharks reopened their casket of playoff demons with a
painful 19 minutes that allowed the Red Wings to score three unanswered goals
and take Game 5 with a 4-3 win on HP Pavilion ice.
After manhandling
the Red Wings for the first two periods, San Jose let a wounded Red Wings
lineup stun them to extend the series to a sixth game on Tuesday night.
With stars Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen suffering from injuries,
the Sharks should have been poised to finish off the Red Wings, but they just
flat out took their foot off the gas. The about face was impossible to explain
after the Sharks commanded so much of the ice for so long.
Rather than
preparing for the Western Conference Finals, San Jose must now battle demons of
playoff failures past as they prepare for Game 6.
"At the end of the
night we lost the game," said a testy Todd McLellan after the game. "That's the
most disappointing thing. We didn't play a poor game and that's hard to
swallow. We didn't give up many opportunities and I thought we had some poison
composure in the 3rd period."
It was all Sharks out of the gate.
Brad Stuart put his former team on the power play after boarding Logan
Couture at 5:46 of the opening period. Detroit would stymie the Sharks power
play early by clogging up the middle.
Niklas Lidstrom tripped up Devin
Setoguchi in front of the Detroit net at 12:26 to put the Sharks back on the
power play. Jimmy Howard made a big save on a second chance shot by Setoguchi,
but that's as close as San Jose would get.
Antti Niemi robbed Jonathan
Ericsson moments later after the Red Wings pushed the puck into the San Jose
zone and setup a one-time chance after a shot from the left point deflected to
the bottom of the right circle where the Detroit forward was roaming. Niemi had
to dive to his left, snaring Ericsson's shot with an extended glove.
The Sharks got to Jimmy Howard at 17:18 on a pretty deflection by Setoguchi.
Dan Boyle sent in a shot from the point just as Setoguchi was crossing through
the slot. The Sharks forward got his stick blade on the waist-high shot,
deflecting it toward the ice. Howard had no chance on the bounce, as the puck
skipped past him.
Johan Franzen took exception to a hit by Joe Thornton
30 seconds later along the boards just inside the Detroit zone. Franzen reacted
by slashing Thornton by flailing his stick with one hand. Thornton dressed up
Franzen's stick work by falling to the ice, earning an unsportsmanlike conduct
penalty. Franzen joined him for the slash to setup a 4-on-4 situation.
Pavel Datsyuk put the Sharks on the power play for a 3rd consecutive time after
holding Ryane Clowe at 2:46 of the 2nd period. Howard made a stellar pad save
off a point-blank shot by Boyle. San Jose's power play looked better, but once
again couldn't get anything past Howard.
Howard came up big a minute
after the Datsyuk penalty expired, snaring a Jason Demers rocket off a Sharks
rush up ice.
Joe Pavelski led a 2-on-1 chance 7 minutes in, but the
centerman pushed a shot wide of the right post after Darren Helm hustled back
to disrupt the scoring chance.
Thornton gave Detroit their first power
play of the game when Thornton took a hooking penalty at the midpoint of the
period. The Sharks penalty kill smothered the Red Wings, denying any shots on
the chance.
Clowe found himself with the puck and nobody between him
and Howard with 7 minutes to play in the period, but Howard denied a scoring
chance from the left side to keep the Sharks lead at the lone goal.
Clowe elected to dish the puck on an identical chance less than two minutes
later after Kyle Wellwood chipped a pass off the left wing boards. Joe Pavelski
was on the receiving end of Clowe's feed, redirecting it past Howard for the
2-0 lead.
Detroit answered less than a minute later when Niklas
Kronwall pumped a shot past Niemi from the right side. Datsyuk kept the puck in
the offensive zone, working it along the left wing boards back toward the
blueline, before sending a pass across the high slot to Kronwall at the top of
the right circle.
Kronwall followed up his goal with a big check on
Clowe who was reaching for a puck in front of the Sharks bench. Kronwall's hit
was sweetened by the comments that Clowe made after Game 4, following a similar
hit by the Red Wing on Heatley.
Logan Couture pushed the Sharks lead
back to 2 goals 54 seconds into the 3rd period after slipping behind the
Detroit defense after Heatley sent a lead pass to the rookie centerman at
center ice. Couture raced up ice and deposited a shot past Howad after deeking
left and pulling back to the backhand.
Heatley took a high sticking
penalty 30 seconds later but a pare of back-checking gems. Helped San Jose kill
the penalty.
Once again the Red Wings cut into the Sharks lead after
San Jose's defense got crossed up in their own zone. Ericsson punched a rebound
into a wide open net, after Niemi was knocked over by his own defenseman.
Detroit tied it up less than two minutes later after Dan Cleary hacked
at a loose puck from the right post. Marc-Edouard Vlasic didn't help by pinning
down his own netminder on the play.
San Jose would completely come
unglued with 6:08 to play, when Tomas Holmstrom deflected a point shot by
Lidstrom by Niemi. The Red Wings forward camped out in front of the Sharks net
and deflected the blast to put the Red Wings up 4-3.
"I think you put
yourselves in a very dangerous position if you start getting back on your heels
against that team, but I don't think that was the case tonight," said McLellan.
"We gave up 6 shots in the 3rd period and 3 of them went in."
Justin
Abdelkader hit Boyle with an elbow at 14:55 to give the Sharks another shot
with the man advantage, but as was the case all night, the Sharks failed to
take advantage of the gifts afforded to them.
McLellan pulled his
netminder with a minute left in regulation. The extra skater would serve the
Sharks as it did all night long, failing them to send the series back to
Detroit for a 6th game.
"We're going to be better for sure in game
six. We are going to take it back to Detroit . We think we played real well
here. We probably should have won game three and we didn't so now we've got to
go back there and win game six."
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think of this story? Post your comments on the
Feeder Forums |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| DET |
0 |
1 |
3 |
4 |
| SJ |
1 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
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| 1st period - 1, SJ,
Setoguchi 5 (Boyle, Thornton), 17:18. |
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| 2nd period - 2, SJ,
Pavelski 5 (Clowe, Wellwood), 15:32. 3, DET, Kronwall 2 (Datsyuk, Stuart),
16:25. |
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| 3rd period - 4, SJ,
Couture 4 (Heatley), 0:54. 5, DET, Ericsson 1 (Zetterberg, Datsyuk), 3:43. 6,
DET, Cleary 2 (Kronwall, Bertuzzi), 5:29. 7, DET, Holmstrom 3 (Lidstrom,
Datsyuk), 13:52. |
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| 1st period - Stuart, DET
(boarding), 5:46; Lidstrom, DET (tripping), 12:26; Franzen, DET (slashing),
17:43; Thornton, SJ (unsportsmanlike conduct), 17:43. |
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| 2nd period - Datsyuk,
DET (holding), 2:46; Thornton, SJ (hooking), 10:05. |
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| 3rd period - Heatley, SJ
(high sticking), 1:25; Abdelkader, DET (elbowing), 14:55. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| DET - Howard |
42 |
39 |
| SJ - Niemi |
22 |
18 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| DET |
7 |
9 |
6 |
22 |
| SJ |
16 |
14 |
12 |
42 |
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| Referees: Lee,
Peel. Linesmen: Amell, Racicot. |
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