Posted by (I apologize for my lack of posts of late. An injury has left me unable to type but my gracious wife has agreed to type this for me. Hopefully, I will be near full capacity again soon. Bythe way, this only corroborates my theory that I am the cause of the Shark’s injury woes…more on this later.)
Since my last post, the Sharks have gone 1-1-1, losing in overtime in Chicago, in regulation the next night in Nashville, and winning Saturday night against Phoenix. During this time, Detroit has dropped consecutive games at home to the team with the NHL’s worst record, the New York Islanders, and to Nashville Sunday night to drop a game and a half behind the Sharks in the race for the President’s Trophy.
But in the big picture how the Sharks are playing is more important that their place in the standings. In their two road losses, they continued to exhibit some of the bad habits that suggest their Stanley Cup quest is in jeopardy.
Against Chicago they had another slow start that resulted in a 3-1 first period deficit. In 20 of the Sharks 37 road games they have either surrendered the first goal or entered the first intermission behind. That has happened in 11 of their 16 road games in February and March.
In this one it took only 66 seconds for the Sharks to be in the hole. They rebounded with a power play goal, but 4:24 later Chicago regained the lead, and a minute later added another. The second period saw Chicago increase their lead to three, but the Sharks answered on the very next shift and got another shortly after the mid-point.
Chicago regained the two-goal lead just over five minutes into the third, and it looked like that might hold. However, with just over five minutes to go, Devin Setoguchi took a tremendous outlet pass from Joe Pavelski and scored a breakaway goal.
Then all that was left was for Joe Thornton to take the team on his back. He attacked the zone controlled the puck with his right hand while fending off Brent Seabrook with his left before going five-hole on Nicolai Khabibulin to tie the score.
The Sharks lost in the shootout, but had found a way to battle back and earn a point on the road against a good team. They also managed to score against one of the league’s better defences, and they did it without Patrick Marleau, at home after the birth of his second son.
But they wouldn’t have had to battle back if their focus had been there at the beginning of the game. Failure to focus for the entire 60 minutes on the road has been a continual problem for the Sharks, who only have four wins on the road against teams currently in the play-offs. The problem continued the next night in Nashville.
In this one the Sharks went into the first intermission ahead 1-0 and increased that lead to 2-0 in the second period. However, in a span of 2:38 that not only disappeared, but turned into a 3-2 Nashville lead that they would not relinquish.
Evgeni Nabokov played in this game despite playing an overtime game the night before. He is 3-3 in the second of back-to-back games, but his save percentage is under .900 and his GAA is over 3.00. Once again, I must ask: why wear down your starting goaltender for the playoffs, as we did last season, when you have a solid back-up goaltender?
The Sharks did bounce back to play a solid 60-minute game at home against Phoenix Saturday night that included goals from very unlikely sources. It started when Coyote defenceman Kurt Sauer scored 2:18 into the second for his first goal in 109 games, but the strange sources did not end there.
About two minutes later, Jody Shelley intercepted a clearing attempt and got off a quick shot through Ilya Bryzgalov’s five-hole to tie the score. It was his second goal of the year. Two minutes after that, Tom Cavanagh got his first NHL goal when he chipped a centering feed from Setoguchi over Bryzgalov’s right shoulder to take a 2-1 lead.If the Sharks can continue to get secondary scoring, they will be dangerous in the playoffs.
For the rest of the game, goals came from more conventional sources. Matthew Lombardi’s centering feed just over a minute later went off Brad Lukowich’s stick past Nabby to re-tie the score, and that held up until the break. The Sharks came back with a power play goal less than two minutes into the third, as Joe Pavelski wristed a shot from the inside of the faceoff circle on Bryzgalov’s stick side to the far corner.
The Sharks held on to that lead for the rest of the game. While the Sharks avoided their habit of losing focus, they continued their habit of expanding their injury report. Marleau became the tenth player on that list when he went off early in the second period with an undisclosed injury and did not skate Sunday; he is considered day-to-day.
The Sharks are in Calgary Monday at 6:30PM PDT to wrap up their season series against the Flames.
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Sorry about the injury buddy. Hope it didn’t involve a snow blower.
And your Sharks are firmly in the driver’s seat because Detroit hasn’t showed up to play these last few games. They are literally giving games away.
Jersey’s fallen of late, too. We’re actually looking good now, as only Vancouver is playing better.
No Sakic injury—I live in CA. But I did exercise my Polish judgment, breaking a glass door and sending a shard into my wrist. Scary, but I missed the major artery. Some nerve damage, though…hopefully temporary and not requiring surgery.
Don’t feel bad man, I’ve been there as well. Fell through a glass door, gashed my triceps, lost a lot of blood, almost died. You know, the fun stuff. It took 8 hours of surgery to repair the damage and I now have a nasty scar because of it. Live and learn.