This Sharks postgame review will be different from most of the other ones I have written, as I was in attendance at Monday's Sharks game against the Seattle Kraken at SAP Center. This will be a complete breakdown of my personal experience at the game with my buddy in addition to summarizing the game. My experience was amazing, and the game itself went much better than I initially thought it would. Let's dive in:
My buddy and I arrived at the Tank around when the gates first opened. We walked one full lap around the concourse, and during that first lap, we happened to run into S.J. Sharkie, the Sharks mascot. He first went to greet some small children before reaching out to give me a big hug and take photos with me. Sharkie is the greatest mascot in sports, and I couldn't be more blessed to have met him.
Following the meet and greet with Sharkie, my buddy and I headed down to the team store to look for souvenirs. To no surprise, I couldn't leave the gift shop without making a purchase, so I ended up buying three souvenir pucks (pictured below):
Right as I finished looking inside the team store, warmups were underway, so I had to head to the lower level to catch them. I ended up a few rows behind the glass, and the warmups brought me back when I caught the Sharks' warmups for the first time at my first Sharks road game in Anaheim nearly a year ago. An unreal experience, except the Sharks now have different uniforms and many different players compared to a year ago.
Our seats were located in the second deck next to the stairway a handful of rows up in section 213. This also happened to be a few sections away from the NBC Sports California broadcast booth where Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda called the game from. With the exception of a few rails, the view from my seat was pretty good.
Right before every game starts and the national anthem is performed, the Sharks players enter the ice through the Shark head while "Seek and Destroy" by Metallica plays in the best and coolest entrance in sports.
The game gets underway, and while the Sharks generated a decent amount of scoring chances early on, the first period remained scoreless but could've been much worse. Former Sharks Martin Jones and Jaycob Megna received a brief applause when they were introduced to the SAP Center crowd as members of the Kraken.
The second period upped the ante, with the Sharks opening the scoring at the 10:45 mark of the middle frame on what was credited as Logan Couture's 20th goal of the season but was actually an own-goal by Yanni Gourde right off of the faceoff circle. It took a strange bounce into the net that Martin Jones didn't see coming at all. I couldn't believe what just happened on that first goal until I saw a few additional replays afterwards, but we will take that any day of the week. This marks Couture's tenth season scoring 20 or more goals, becoming the third player in Sharks history to accomplish this feat. About five minutes later, the Sharks extended their lead to two after Evgeny Svechnikov poked one in for his seventh goal of the season. During the final seconds of the third period, the Sharks added another one to cap off a three-goal second period via Noah Gregor's fourth goal of the year from Evgeny Svechnikov and Erik Karlsson.
After the Sharks put up a three-spot in the middle frame, early in the third period saw chants of "We want tacos!" from the crowd around the arena. For those of you who are unaware, whenever the Sharks score four goals in a game at the Tank, everyone in attendance receives a special limited-time offer for four free tacos at Taco Bell. In fact, this is exactly what happened late in the third period, as the Sharks put the icing on the cake late in the third after Mikey Eyssimont redirected one into the net at the doorstep for his fourth goal of the year from Logan Couture and Erik Karlsson. EK65 now has 76 points on the campaign, tying Brent Burns for the second-most points in a season by a defenseman in Sharks franchise history.
James Reimer recorded 26 saves to complete the shutout in impressive fashion in his return from injury. This may be only their sixth home win of the season, but it is a significant win for this Sharks team, especially since their two best forwards in Timo Meier and Tomas Hertl couldn't play and the odds were already stacked against Team Teal to begin with. As for Timo and Tomas, Timo was out with an upper-body injury, while Tomas was out due to a personal matter. In their place for this game was Martin Kaut, who was called up from the Barracuda and made his Sharks debut. Sucks that I didn't get to see Timo Meier and Tomas Hertl play in this game, but I am more than happy that the Sharks certainly made up for it.
Overall, I had an unforgettable experience at my fourth NHL game and second game at SAP Center in nine years. This was my first game where a shutout was recorded, and it was nothing short of amazing. The Sharks are now 2-0-1 when I'm at their games, and in my quest to see every NHL team play in person, I can cross the newest NHL team in the Seattle Kraken off the list. That list is now six teams down and 26 more to go. I gotta make it a mission to see more games at the Tank in the coming years regardless of how well the Sharks are performing on the ice, and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same because you won't regret it.
The normal Sharks postgame reviews on this site will resume Thursday, when the Sharks host the Nashville Predators in their next game, with puck drop at 7:30 pm PT.
Sources: NHL App, San Jose Sharks PR via Twitter
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