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Scoring by
committee
6 different Sharks score in
rout
11/18/06 - by Mike Lee
The home
Sharks looked nothing like the road Sharks on Saturday night at HP Pavilion. In
their first game back since concluding a four game road-trip, the Sharks looked
like a revitalized team that could score at will. San Jose jumped out to an
early lead against the visiting Philadelphia Flyers, then went for the jugular
before the game was half over in a 6-1 thrashing.
Six different Sharks
tallied goals and Vesa Toskala cruised to his 10th win of the season in the
happy homecoming after taking 3 of 4 on the road. The Sharks won those three
road games by overcoming an absence of jump on the ice and a myriad of
mistakes.
Philadelphia remedied that problem in hurry.
"We did a
lot of the little things that we hadn't been doing," said Mike Grier. "We had
guys driving to the net, we had guys putting pucks on the net and getting
traffic. A lot of the games when we were getting outshot, we were not putting
pucks on the net and driving the net and making it hard on the other
team."
Grier would tally a short-handed goal in the opening period after
Geoff Sanderson scored the Flyers lone goal of the game on a power play.
Grier?s goal was a backbreaker for the Flyers, who moved the puck exceptionally
well on the power play that setup Sanderson's goal. With Joe Thornton in the
box, the Flyers could have knotted the game at 2-2 and swung the early momentum
that San Jose established with goals by Patrick Rissmiller and Milan Michalek,
but Grier's 5th of the season re-established the Sharks two goal
lead.
"That short-handed goal really got us," said Fyers defenseman Mike
Rathje, who made his first trip to San Jose since leaving the team in 2004. "It
just killed our team."
Rismiller was credited with his 2nd tally of the
season just 2:36 into the game when he tipped a Ville Nieminen blast from the
point. Michalek scored a highlight reel goal on a fancy give-and-go play with
Thornton two minute later. Michalek carried the puck into Philadelphia's zone
before dropping the puck to Thornton who trailed the break. Michalek then broke
for the net and tipped a 40-foot backhand pass from Thornton past Robert
Esche.
Toskala would deny the Flyers later in the period when
he made a series of circus saves in succession on a wild series. The Flyers
forced Toskala to make a diving save on an R.J. Umberger wrister in tight, and
had him dead to rights when the puck landed on defenseman Derrian Hatcher's
stick, but Toskala waved at Hatcher's shot with his leg pad, denying the would
be goal.
"I don't like those because those are kind of desperation
saves," Toskala said. "Hopefully, I don't need a lot of those. ... I got
lucky."
San Jose would carve up Esched in the 2nd period with another
salvo of goals. The first should have chased Esche, but Flyers head coach John
Stevens elected to stay with his netminder. The goal in question was a power
play tally by Sharks defenseman Kyle McLaren at the 3:52 mark of the period.
McLaren circled around the left dot before firing a shot at Esche that squeezed
through an opening between the Flyers goaltender and left post. Esche may have
been concerned with a possibility of a crossing pass, but giving up a goal to
the strong side was soft.
"We're usually relying on one or two lines or
one our two guys every single night to score," said McLaren. "Any time you have
a chance to spread the scoring out from our first line to our fourth line and
even our defense, it gives more confidence to the guys that haven't been
scoring. Everybody did it tonight."
Esche surrendered his 5th of the
night on a Ryan Clowe slap shot at the 9:22 mark after Patrick Marleau left a
drop pass in the slot.
"They jumped out to a lead and outplayed us from
the beginning," Flyers forward Peter Forsberg said. "We gave away too much
speed in the neutral zone. They buried their chances but we couldn't do
anything with ours."
Clowe would add an assist on a drop-pass of his own
three minutes later, on Curtis Brown's 4th of the
season.
Notes:
Mark Bell would have an eventful evening,
squaring off with Ben Eager and Boyd Kane in separate fights. Kane went after
Bell, following a boarding incident which left Flyers rookie Alexander Picard
sprawled out on the ice. Picard would leave the game and not return.
Jonathan Cheechoo was a scratch and is listed as day-to-day after
suffering a knee injry in Colorado on Wednesday.
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| PHI |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| SJ |
3 |
3 |
0 |
6 |
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| 1st period - 1, SJ,
Rissmiller 2 (Nieminen, Goc), 2:36. 2, Michalek 9 (Thornton, McLaren), 4:46. 3,
PHI, Sanderson 7 (Richards, Robitaille), 8:16, (pp). 4, SJ, Grier 5 (Brown),
10:24, (sh). |
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| 2nd period -
5, SJ, McLaren 3 (Vlassic, Rissmiller), 3:52, (pp). 6, SJ, Clowe 2 (Marleau,
Bernier), 9:22. 7, SJ, Brown 4 (Clowe), 12:25 |
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| 1st period - Eager, PHI
(fighting major), 5:27; Bell, SJ (fighting major), 5:27; Carle, SJ (slashing),
6:51; Thornton, SJ (boarding), 9:10. |
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| 2nd period - Kane, PHI
(fighting major), 1:36; Kane, PHI (10 min misconduct), 1:36; Kane, PHI
(instigator), 1:36; Bell, SJ (fighting major), 1:36; Bell, SJ (boarding), 1:36;
Knuble, PHI (holding), 2:08; Robitaille, PHI (slashing), 5:22; Davison, SJ
(roughing), 16:06; Bell, SJ (high sticking), 19:47. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| PHI - Esche |
18 |
12 |
| PHI - Nittymaki |
7 |
7 |
| SJ - Toskala |
18 |
17 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| PHI |
5 |
4 |
9 |
18 |
| SJ |
11 |
8 |
6 |
25 |
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| Referees: Gord Dwyer, Rob
Shick. Linesmen: Brian Mach, Pierre Racicot. |
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