Sharks Game 19 Recap: Sharks 6, Avalanche 2 (3/1/21)

 This has to be the Sharks' best win they've had all season as they scored six unanswered goals to defeat the Avalanche 6-2. 

It all began when the Sharks were trailing 2-0 through the first 30 minutes of last night's game. At this point it seemed like we would be in for a long night, but the opposite occurred. It went as follows: 

• Radim Simek scores his first goal of the season to put the Sharks on the board at the 6:13 mark of the second period. Assisting on the play were Marc-Eduoard Vlasic and Rudolfs Balcers. 
• Kevin Labanc scores to tie the game at two roughly ten minutes later, getting helpers from Evander Kane and Logan Couture. 
• Early in the third, Rudolfs Balcers is credited with his second goal of the season to give the Sharks their first lead of the game after Nazem Kadri appeared to have put it in his own net. Assisting on the play were Dylan Gambrell and Timo Meier. 
• Erik Karlsson scores his first goal of the season at the 7:53 mark in the third to increase the Sharks' lead to two. This one felt the best after all the adversity Karlsson has gone through this season so far, playing like the Erik Karlsson we all know and love. 
• John Leonard scores an absolute beauty on the breakaway a few minutes later for his third goal of the year to extend the lead to three. In addition, Timo Meier records his third assist of the night. 
• Evander Kane finds the empty net with about a minute remaining to seal the deal for the Sharks, with Brent Burns getting an apple on the empty-netter. 

Besides the six unanswered goals, Martin Jones had arguably his best performance of the season, stopping 33 of 35 shots from the Avalanche and equating to a .943 save percentage. 

Alex True made his season debut last night, recording two shots, one hit, and four penalty minutes.

A huge theme in this game was greater production from more of the defense corps, not just Brent Burns. Overall, this win felt amazing, and I really hope the Sharks can keep up their level of production that we saw last night for as long as possible. They are now 8-9-2 on the season and still have opportunities to gain more ground in the West Division and turn their season around. Their next chance to do so is tomorrow night against the Avalanche at 7:30 pm PT. 

Other Sharks news: 

• Logan Couture was named the NHL's West Division First Star of February along with medical assistant Martha Godinez of San Jose. 
• Joachim Blichfeld, Joel Kellman, Josef Korenar, Nick DeSimone, and Kurtis Gabriel have been assigned to the taxi squad in a flurry of roster transactions announced today. In addition, Stefan Noesen, Sasha Chmelevski, Noah Gregor, Alexei Melnichuk, and Nicholas Meloche have been sent down to the Barracuda in the AHL.
  

Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL app