Posted by In their first match-up Thursday night, the Sharks jumped out to a 3-0 second period lead, only to blow the lead, go to overtime, and give up four goals. In fact, two of the teams’ three games had gone into the extra session.
In Tuesday’s rematch, the Sharks had a 3-0 second period lead, blew it and went into overtime. Minnesota once again scored four goals, and it looked like Deja Vu’ all over again.
The difference in this game is San Jose scoring the goal in the third period so that fourth goal for Minnesota only took the game into overtime. That’s what allowed San Jose to get the game-winner in overtime and walk away with two points in the 5-4 victory.
But it does not change the fact that the Sharks once again failed to play 60 minutes. They are playing a grueling schedule (34 games in 66 days to end the season), but might be rested in the playoffs since by my count they have not played a full game in two weeks. (That plus with all the injuries, there will be several players rested.)
One can hope that the problem is fatigue, but there have been as many mental lapses as physical ones. Coach Todd McLellan has talked about the team not matching the desperation of their opponents, and that was my point in questioning the playoff readiness of the team.
Now even the players are talking about it publicly. After Tuesday night’s narrow escape, Brian Boucher said,
“I don’t know why we kind of go into a shell… . Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes during the regular season so come the post-season we’re solid.”
One can only hope. Right now, the Sharks are not learning anything. They continue to take multiple shifts, even almost entire periods off. They continue to take bad penalties. They continue to get caught watching the puck and leave the goalie to face unguarded shooters near the net. They are regularly failing to get bodies to the net.
This time the Sharks benefited from a fluky goal, just 4:13 into the game. Christian Ehrhoff dumped the puck in and Travis Moen chipped it to Joe Thornton, who tossed it toward the net; it bounced off a Minnesota defender’s skate and over Niklas Backstrom for Joe’s 19th goal of the season.
Later, Patrick Marleau blocked a shot on a penalty kill and that sprung him for a breakaway. The two Minnesota defencemen played it well, and Patty could not make any moves. However, after Backstrom poked the puck off Patty’s stick, Travis Moen was there for the five-hole rebound put-back because Mikko Koivu had watched him race in rather than trying to beat him.
On a side note, I know one reason the Wild players have so few points: in any other rink, Marleau gets an assist on that goal. The official scorer’s stinginess was even worse on the next goal.
Devin Setoguchi got the puck to Thornton, who passed it to Ehrhoff. His shot was saved, and when defenceman Nick Schultz tried to take possession of the puck, it squirted out to Thornton, who took advantage of Backstrom being on his rump and slapped the puck high through the crowd for his 20th goal. No one got an assist because the scorer ruled that Schultz had possession and tagged him with a giveaway.
Just as last week, Minnesota bounced back. For the remaining 14:20 of the period, they out-shot the Sharks 13-1, with a goal by Peter Olvecky at 8:38 (assisted by Cal Clutterbuck and Marc-Andre Bergeron).
This time, they needed a minute of the third period to get their second goal, when Pierre-Marc Bouchard took a Kim Johnsson pass and snapped a wicked writster over Boucher’s left shoulder. And this time, San Jose bounced back, getting a crafty goal just over half-way into the period from a tough angle by Milan Michalek that caught Backstrom off-guard (Ryane Clowe and Dan Boyle got the assists).
However, the two-goal lead seemed to make them overconfident again, and Owen Nolan took advantage twice. On his first goal (the 400th of his career), Koivu passed the puck to Marek Zidlicky on the point, and Nolan redirected his shot for an easy goal. On the second, Brad Lukowich got beaten by Koivu, then was indecisive about whether to go back after him or play a spot; as soon as he went back toward Mikko, the captain passed it to Nolan alone just outside the crease for the easy one-timer.
In the remaining 2:06 of the third and the 3:34 played in overtime, there was a lot of end-to-end action. However, it was not resulting in a lot of shots on goal, as both teams did well in blocking shots (San Jose won that duel 20-17).
Both team also did well in not turning the puck over, but one of Minnesota’s six giveaways (the Sharks had one) was to Ehrhoff, who raced in and lifted a shot over the shoulder of Backstrom for the winner.
Minnesota out-hit San Jose 29-15 and still managed not to have any more penalties than their guests (three). San Jose did win the faceoff battle 30-23.
My three stars:
- Christian Ehrhoff needs to be the fitst star with the big game-winning (unassisted) goal and one of the Sharks’ four assists. He was also +2 with 3 blocked shots.
- Owen Nolan once again killed his former team, scoring two third-period goals that gave the Wild a point in this game; he was +1.
- There are so many people who belong on this list. Cal Clutterbuck had 10 hits (he should break Dustin Brown’s record of 311 hits in a season) and an assist to go with his blocked shot. Marc-Andre Bergeron was +3 with an assist, four hits, and three blocks. But I will give it to Travis Moen, who got another of the Sharks’ four assists and the big short-handed goal to go with three hits.
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