The Sharks needed a shootout to settle things for the second-straight game and finally ended their seven-game skid against the New York Islanders 4-3.
This was basically like the Sharks' previous game that I was at in Anaheim except with a more positive outcome for the Sharks. In terms of the scoring spread, both games were pretty much the exact same. It was also a historic game in the fact that Zdeno Chara of the Islanders passed Chris Chelios for the most games played by a defenseman in NHL history with 1,652 games played. Big Z was given a tribute video and a standing ovation from the SAP Center crowd as a result.
Around the 15-minute mark of the first period, the Sharks allowed the first goal of the game to Brock Nelson. The Sharks tied it a minute later via Alexander Barabanov on their first power play opportunity, getting assists from Brent Burns and Tomas Hertl. Roughly a minute and a half later, Jasper Weatherby scores the go-ahead goal for Team Teal, with the lone assist on that play being credited to Jeff Viel.
Early in the second period, Jeff Viel fought Zdeno Chara in his record-setting game, even though Viel didn't stand much of a chance against Chara. In the later half of the second period, Zach Parise scored his 400th NHL goal to even the score at two for the Islanders. Matt Nieto laid a big, clean, and hard hit on Ryan Pulock, resulting in Jean-Gabriel Pageau dropping the gloves with Matt Nieto to stick up for his teammate. Logan Couture scored his third goal in the past two games to give the Sharks a 3-2 lead on their second successful power play conversion of the game. Ryan Merkley and Tomas Hertl were credited with the helpers on that goal. The Sharks' 3-2 lead didn't last for long as Adam Pelech scored moments later to tie the game at three. In addition, Nicolas Meloche had to exit the game in the middle frame after taking an elbow to the head.
The third period was scoreless and pretty uneventful, which forced overtime and eventually the shootout. Logan Couture redeemed himself from the previous game by scoring on his shootout attempt on Ilya Sorokin, which was all that was needed for the Sharks to earn the extra point and end their seven-game skid once and for all besides James Reimer being perfect in the shootout.
Speaking of James Reimer, he has been receiving the bulk of the workload in net but is still performing fairly well, stopping 44 of 47 shots against the Islanders.
Rudolfs Balcers was feeling worse on Thursday before the game against the Isles after taking a hard hit by Rickard Rakell against the Ducks on Tuesday, allowing Jonathan Dahlen to draw back into the lineup.
This was a much-needed win for the Sharks in order to instill more confidence in themselves going forward. Hopefully they can become more consistent for at least the remainder of this season and step up their game even further. San Jose hosts the Boston Bruins in their next game on Saturday at 7:30 pm PT in the first of a back-to-back set.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App
No comments:
Post a Comment