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Sharks drop 4th straight to
doormat
Buffalo the latest to open up in the 3rd
period
If you happen to be driving down Santa Clara Street
on Saturday afternoon, you may have caught a whiff of an awful stench emitting
from SAP Center. That smell may have been the 17,370 paid attendees all
vomiting in mass as the league's worst Buffalo Sabres were handing the Sharks
their 4th loss in a row. Having won once in eight tries this season, the Sabres
should have been easy pickings for the Sharks. What should have been and what
transpired were two very different things. Buffalo scored a pair of 3rd period
goals to beat San Jose 2-1 in what is clearly the most embarrassing loss of the
season for the Sharks.
The Sabres had scored a single goal in the 300
minutes prior to their 3rd period outburst on Saturday afternoon. On the flip
side, San Jose slept through the first 40 minutes of the game, going through
the motions in a lack luster performance that magnified the Sharks woes.
Their inability to stop an opponent from scoring in the 3rd period has
been a recurring problem that played out for the 6th consecutive game. Perhaps
the Sharks are giving too much ice time to tired old legs or young
inexperienced legs when the game is on the line.
Saturday's fiasco
came down to players standing and watching rather than skating and doing. Cody
Hodgson broke a 0-0 deadlock 3:43 into the 3rd period by outworking two Shark
defenders in front of San Jose's goal to score his first goal of the season.
Hodgson collected a loose puck in front of goaltender Alex Stalock as rookie
centerman Chris Tierney cross himself up chasing the puck. Tommy Wingels was
late to identify that Hodgson was all alone in front of the net as he watched
the play develop from the high slot.
The goal was Hodgson's 1st of the
season, which shouldn't be too surprising, given that Buffalo had scored only 9
goals total in their first 8 games.
Nicolas Deslauriers got in on the
1st goal of the season act himself by pushing Buffalo's lead to 2-0 with a
tally less than 2 minutes after Hodgson's score. Cody McCormick fired a shot on
net from the left wing boards that Alex Stalock tried gloving. The puck bounced
through Stalock's glove, landing on the lip of the crease where Deslauriers was
there for the easy tap in. Defenseman Scott Hannan allowed Deslauriers to get
inside position on him and could only watch as the Sabres forward knocked home
what would turn out to be the game winning goal.
That goal came from
the Sabres 4th line, where in contrast, the Sharks top two lines did absolutely
nothing for 60 minutes.
The 3rd period outburst by a team that had no
business being in the game in the first place was yet another catastrophe for a
Sharks team that has been giving up multiple goals late. To do it against the
league's cellar dweller is a clear indication that the defense has some issues.
Brent Burns helped San Jose eliminate the indignity of a shutout by
scoring his 2nd goal of the season 13 seconds after Deslauriers goal.
Collecting a failed clearing attempt, the Sharks burly defenseman slid from the
slot to the left wing boards before whipping a 30 foot shot that eluded Sabres
goaltender Michal Neuvirth. Wingels created a screen on the play, parking
himself on the edge of the crease.
With a fourth straight loss looming, the Sharks failed
to play with any urgency until the final 4 minutes of the game. A peculiar
approach to dig themselves out of a hole. They outshot Buffalo 16-6 in the 3rd
period, but made Neuvirth look like a Vezina candidate with low percentage
shots that were easily gobbled up by the Sabres goaltender. The win was
Neuvirth's first against San Jose in four tries.
The win was also the
Sabres 7th straight against San Jose and 4th straight at SAP Center.
If this was an example of the Sharks new attitude about commitment to team,
they stank collectively as a team. Not sure that's what GM Doug Wilson was
talking about last summer when his rhetoric about how San Jose would overcome
their playoff collapse, but if anything, the team was consistent.
Post Game Quoteables
Head Coach Todd McLellan: "I thought we
just played with them rather than putting our foot on the gas. And that's
disappointing. Guys should be able find the happy medium and make sure their
foot is on the gas peddle going the other way. I thought Chris Tierney had his
best game for us--Tommy Wingels, Matt Nieto--certainly through the first two
periods they were our best line."
Tommy Wingels: "I tried to play
hard. I don't think it has to do with carryover from the previous game. We need
to do a better job at keeping them from scoring. We have to find a way to get
more pucks to the net."
Logan Couture: "We play one of the best teams
in the league tomorrow, and if we play the way we have in the past couple
(then) we're going to get blown out of the rink. We need a better effort from
everyone."
Sabres Head Coach Ted Nolan: "We're a tough team, if we're
going to win any games that how you have to win them (in low scoring games),
it's going to take some ugly goals (it's going to hit someone and bounce up and
you might be able to tap it in. The Deslauriers goal it was floater to the net
and it just came available and he popped it into the net. Those types of goals
aren't going to be highlight reel goals."
Michal Neuvirth: "It's a
huge win for me and for everybody on this team, we worked really hard for this
and it paid off tonight. After I gave up that goal I thought you got to shut
the door and help your teammates - I'm glad I could do that."
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Feeder Forums |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| BUF |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
| SJ |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
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| 3rd period - 1, BUF,
Hodgson 1 (Stafford, Girgenson), 3:43. 2, BUF, Deslauriers 1 (McCormick,
Reinhart), 5:57. 3, SJ, Burns 2 (unassisted), 6:10. |
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| 1st period - Desjardins,
SJ (interference), 19:04. |
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| 2nd period -
Ristolainen, BUF (interfernece), 11:51; Hannan, SJ (tripping), 18:45; Ennis,
BUF (interference), 19:57. |
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| 3rd period - Wingels, SJ
(holding the stick), 0:24. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| BUF - Neuvirth |
30 |
29 |
| SJ - Stalock |
15 |
13 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| BUF |
7 |
2 |
6 |
15 |
| SJ |
5 |
9 |
16 |
30 |
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| Referees: LaRue,
Peel. Linesmen: Mach, Wheler. |
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