When Mike Grier and Ryan Warsofsky drew up the
kind of wins they expected their team to win, Thursday night may have been a
blueprint for that plan. Playing in a rare home game on Halloween, the Sharks
had one of the young prospects show his teeth by scoring the first goal of the
game and then bag the game winner, while their defense held off a tenacious
opponent in a gritty 3rd period to take a tight 3-2 win.
That's what
happened at SAP Center on Thursday night, as the Sharks beat the Chicago
Blackhawks. The win was fueled by a a pair of goals by rookie forward Will
Smith who finally cracked the score sheet.
The heralded sniper had
gone his first 8 games without scoring a goal and he was clearly starting to
grip his stick a little tighter as each game passed. That issue was addressed
with a pair of goals, including the game winner in the 2nd period.
Smith opened the game with his 1st career NHL tally 6:52 into the contest. Luke
Kunin sent a pass from the right wing boards that hit the Lexington, Mass.
native near the left dot. Smith was able to collect the pass and get the shot
off in a blink of an eye. That seemed to catch Blackhawks goaltender Petr
Mrazek by surprise and Smith was an NHL goal scorer.
One glaring hole
the Sharks still need to address is how they respond to opposing teams
immediately following a goal of their own. The Blackhawks took all of 37
seconds to respond to Smith's first goal.
Former Shark forward Ryan
Donato scored his 6th of the year after Tyler Toffoli failed to handle a Ilya
Mikheyev feed out of the right corner. Mikhayev saw Donato pinching from the
left point, but Toffoli was able to get a stick on the pass. The problem is he
failed to control the pass, which was gathered by Donato and sent sailing past
Mackenzie Blackwood after releasing a shot from between the circles.
Tyler Bertuzzi staked the Blackhawks to a 2-1 lead 50 seconds later. After
winning a faceoff in the Sharks zone, Connor Murphy sent a puck on goal from
the right point that hit either Bertuzzi or Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro in
front of the net. Bertuzzi found the loose puck before Ferraro did and swept it
past Blackwood from the doorstep.
San Jose tied the game 90 seconds
into the 2nd period when Alexander Wennberg stabbed at a loose puck that
slipped between Mrazek's pads. Fabian Zetterlund fired a shot at Mrazek from
the right dot, but the Blackhawks goaltender didn't control the puck. Referee
Brian Pochmara saw the puck uncovered, allowing Wennberg to poke at it for his
2nd goal of the season.
A Colin Smith high sticking penalty at 9:!6 of
the middle frame would give the Sharks their only power play opportunity of the
contest. Smith would make the most of it by bagging his 2nd goal of the night.
The Sharks forward collected a loose puck after a clearing attempt by
Murphy kicked across the ice. Smith took a second to get a grip o the puck then
whipped a shot that beat Mrazek by tucking under the crossbar. A few players
didn't see the puck cross the goal line, but Pochmara signaled a good goal.
Clinging to their 1-goal lead, San Jose had to
withstand a big push by Chicago in the 3rd period. The Blackhawks out-shot San
Jose 13-5 in the period, which doesn't tell the whole story. Chicago sustained
control in the Sharks zone for most of the period but Blackwood was up to the
test.
That became even more precarious with 1:19 left in the game
after Zetterlund lofted a puck over the glass for a delay of game penalty. San
Jose's penalty kill did their job by clearing out anything that approached
Blackwood even faced with defending 6-on-4 after the Blackhawks pulled Mrazek.
Game Notes: * Jake Walman was credited with the
secondary assist on Alexander Wennberg's 2nd period goal, which gives him 7
points in his last 3 games. All of those games have been Shark wins. Alexander
Wennberg has tallied 6 points on 2 goal and 4 assists over his last 5 games.
* Will Smith joins good company as the second youngest Shark to record
a 2-goal game. Patrick Marleau still holds the mark as the youngest player in
franchise history to accomplish the feat.
* San Jose continues to lean
on the body, out-hitting Chicago 20-13 in the contest.
* One reason
the Sharks were able to contain Chicago was by winning 25 of 41 face-offs for a
61% win rate.
* The contest marked the first time San Jose played a
home game on Halloween since 1999.
