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Hard one to
explain
Ben Scrivens stops 59 shots in Oilers
win
Before I go on my rant about how bad Wednesday
night's Sharks game was, let me put some things into perspective. The Edmonton
Oilers have the fewest victories in the Western Conference and second fewest in
the NHL. No team has given up more goals than Edmonton. They have a -43 goal
differential. To put things plainly, the Edmonton Oilers stink. Except
Wednesday. They had an opportunity to look like world beaters, because an
unprepared San Jose Sharks team stumbled into Canada after getting shut out by
Los Angeles on Monday night. Edmonton leaned on a hot goaltender and the Sharks
puked up a 3-0 shutout loss, extending their inability to score to 120 minutes.
* Kind of ironic that the Sharks have been shutout in back to back
games, just a week after Sharks backup goaltender Alex Stalock turned in back
to back shutouts of his own.
* San Jose threw 3 games worth of shots
on Oilers goaltender Ben Scrivens, who set an expansion era record for the most
saves in a shutout performance. The old record was held by Mike Smith who had a
54 save performance. San Jose had shot counts of 20, 22 and 17 across the three
regulation periods.
* The shot count was a result of a few things. The
Oilers statistician was extremely generous with his definition of a shot on
goal. Scrivens stopped everything thrown at him, but he was credited with a
number of soft "shots".
* Let's be clear. Scrivens had a good game,
but let's not make this out to be what it's not. San Jose threw plenty of
rubber at the Oilers goal from long range. It was quite peculiar that they
continued with the tactic well into the 3rd period when it was clear that
Scrivens wasn't going to misplay anything. Even when Scrivens was laying out on
the ice, San Jose found a way to shot it into his chest.
* Scrivens
best save of the night came on a Patrick Marleau short-handed breakaway that he
snuffed with a stick save after Marleau cut across the slot from right to left.
* Edmonton put three pucks past Antti Niemi, which should be a bigger
concern for the Sharks. Niemi has been average at best in January, but he
wasn't given much defensive support on Wednesday.
* Justin Schultz
provided the Oilers with all the offense they would need 10:51 into the game.
With the Oilers cycling the puck in the San Jose zone and running roughshod in
front of the Sharks net, Shultz threw a puck on net from the right point. Niemi
was screened on the shot and was late to react once the shooting lane opened
up.
* The Sharks only trailed by a goal heading into the 3rd period,
but a pair of Oiler goals iced things. Marleau misplayed a shift change,
allowing the Oilers to carry the puck up ice 2-on-1. Taylor Hall snapped a
Jordan Eberle feed past Niemi to cap the break.
* Eberle converted on
a power play after Dan Boyle caught Jeff Petry with a high stick with 2:09 left
to play.
* Martin Havlat made his return to the ice on
Wednesday after missing 17 games. The last 7 of those have been due to coaches
decision, which is what everyone wants to hear about a player earning $5
million a year.
* Every Sharks forward had at least one shot on goal
with the exception of Joe Pavelski. If the outcome of the game wasn't
bewildering enough, try and explain how the Sharks hottest goal scorer doesn't
even register a shot on a night when his team puts up 59 shots.
* San
Jose actually threw 100 pucks in the vicinity of Scrivens. 59 were counted as
official shots, 22 were blocked by the Oilers and another 19 were wide of the
scoring orifice, including three that caught iron.
* Mike Brown and
Matt Hendricks dropped the gloves at the end of the opening period, which ended
with Brown catching Hendricks with a left that destroyed the Oilers centerman.
It looked as if Hendricks hit his head on the ice after dropping like a stone.
The Oilers announced that he suffered a head injury, but it was unclear if it
was caused by Brown's punch or the ice.
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What did you
think of this story? Post your comments on the
Feeder Forums |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| SJ |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| EDM |
1 |
0 |
2 |
3 |
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| 1st period - 1, EDM, J.
Schultz 7 (N. Schultz, Hall), 10:51 |
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| 3rd period - 2, EDM Hall
19 (Eberle, Nugent-Hopkins), 6:10. |
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| Shootout - EDM: (), (),
(). SJ: (), (), (). |
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| 1st period - Eberle, EDM
(hooking), 2:53; Gagner, EDM (tripping), 7:32; Brown, SJ (fighting major),
19:17; Hendricks, EDM (fighting major), 19:17. |
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| 2nd period - Vlasic, SJ
(hooking), 16:24; Burns, SJ (roughing), 18:54; Marincin, EDM (roughing),
18:54. |
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| 3rd period - Belov, EDM
(cross checking), 11:02; Boyle, SJ (high sticking), 17:51. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| SJ - Niemi |
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| EDM - Scrivens |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
OT |
T |
| SJ |
20 |
22 |
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| EDM |
7 |
9 |
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| Referees: St
Laurent, Rehman. Linesmen: Cameron, Sharrers. |
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