The Sharks had a better performance in St. Louis compared to their previous game in Colorado, but they still couldn’t get the win as the Blues prevail 4-2.
The Sharks had their first huge opportunity of this game early in the first period via a wraparound attempt by Steven Lorentz set up Evgeny Svechnikov to poke it in. This was initially ruled no goal, and it stayed that way after further review since the situation room in Toronto didn’t find any conclusive evidence to overturn it. Luckily, the Sharks made up for it afterwards by Erik Karlsson scoring his 20th goal of the season to put the Sharks on the board. This sets a new career high in points for EK65 with 83, tying the Sharks franchise record for points for a defenseman, with Alexander Barabanov and Andreas Johnsson assisting on the play. The Blues evened things up a few minutes later on a goal from Torey Krug.
Around the ten-minute mark of the second period, the Blues grabbed their first lead of the night via Sammy Blais. The Sharks get the equalizer about four and a half minutes later on Tomas Hertl’s 18th goal of the season, with Barabanov picking up his second assist of the night, to make it a 2-2 game through two periods of play.
Early in the third, Jakub Vrana scored to put St. Louis back on top. The Sharks almost tied it up at three not long after, but it was automatically disallowed after Tomas Hertl deflected the puck with a high stick before it found the back of the net. The Blues got extra insurance late in the third via Robert Thomas to extend their lead to two.
Kaapo Kahkonen had a much better performance in net compared to the other night, recording a total of 26 saves.
In other news, Head Coach David Quinn was fine $25,000 by the NHL due to his angry tirade at official Gord Dwyer in the Sharks' blowout loss to the Capitals on Saturday. This additional discipline doesn't surprise me, and it would be best for Gord Dwyer to not officiate another Sharks game again because he holds some sort of grudge against Team Teal with the way he has officiated two of the Sharks' most recent games.
Overall, despite the end result, this was a significant improvement over the other night to close out their current homestand. Team Teal remains at 19-35-12 with 50 points on the campaign, good for eighth in the Pacific, ninth in the West, and 30th overall in the NHL. They return home for their next four games, starting on Saturday against the Minnesota Wild at 7:30 pm PT.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App
You can further support my blogs by checking out my merch (sample pictured below): CPF Store
No comments:
Post a Comment