Sharks Game 31 Recap: Sharks 4, Kings 2 (3/24/21)

 The Sharks took care of business as they defeated the Kings 4-2 and sweep the early week miniseries to close out their current homestand. 

Not much significant occurred in the first period, except the Sharks had a few opportunities on the man-advantage that they weren't able to capitalize on. The scoring began early in the second period by Rudolfs Balcers from a beautiful feed from Marcus Sorensen to put the Sharks on the board first, with Dylan Gambrell getting the other assist on that play. During the second half of the second frame, Evander Kane scores his first of two in this game to give the Sharks a two-goal advantage, with great passing from Brent Burns and Kevin Labanc to complete the play. Towards the end of the second, Alex Iafallo scores to cut the Kings' deficit to one. 

It only took 21 seconds into the third period for Evander Kane to score his second goal of the game and his 14th of the season tipping in a shot from Mario Ferraro at the point. In addition, Brent Burns gets his second assist of the game on Evander's second goal of the game. Shortly after, Tomas Hertl scores his ninth of the season to give the Sharks their biggest lead of the night at 4-1, with Marc-Eduoard Vlasic and Radim Simek getting the assists on that play. Following Hertl's goal a few minutes later were the Kings getting one back via Adrian Kempe from Drew Doughty. With less than three minutes remaining in this game, Logan Couture goes down after taking a high stick to the face from Jeff Carter. Hopefully Couture doesn't have to miss any extended period of time after that incident. It has also been determined that Jeff Carter won't face any additional discipline from the NHL after the high-sticking incident last night. 

Martin Jones had another stellar performance, recording 42 saves for his second straight 40+ save game. He is also the first Sharks goalie since Arturs Irbe in April 1993 to make 40+ saves in consecutive games. 

Another great effort from the Sharks against a team they should beat and are capable of beating on most nights. I couldn't be more satisfied with the way this miniseries against the dreaded rival Kings has gone. The Sharks continue on their compacted stretch of games this season (roughly 4-5 games in 7 days) with their next miniseries on Friday and Saturday in Arizona against the Coyotes. The Coyotes are another team the Sharks are chasing in the West Division standings that they should be able to beat, and hopefully the Sharks can keep playing well and winning games like these. 

Sources: NBCSN, NHL App