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Defense steps up to down
Ducks
Blake and Vlasic score in 3-1 win
With defenseman Dan Boyle on the shelf with an
upper body injury, the Sharks were wondering if the defensive corps could pick
up the slack on Thursday night as San Jose hosted the Anaheim Ducks at HP
Pavilion. The answer came in the form of Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Rob Blake who
both scored to help pace the Sharks to a 3-1 win over Anaheim.
Boyle is
expected to miss Saturday night's game against the Buffalo Sabres, so it was a
good opportunity for the younger Shark defenseman to show their stuff. Doing it
against a physical team like Anaheim required more focus on details.
“Blake and Vlasic were partners until tonight, then we broke them up and
they both scored," said McLellan. "I consider that secondary scoring. We got a
couple from the defensemen which I don’t think is odd, but to have the
only two come from defensemen is important.”
The game started with an interference penalty to Joe
Thornton right off the opening faceoff. Matt Beleskey helped offset things by
taking a slashing penalty 50 seconds later.
Things turned spirited
when Anaheim enforcer George Parros and Ryane Clowe squared off in a spirited
fight. Parros was taking his first shift after missing the last ten games with
a laceration, and the layoff was apparent in the way Clowe gained control of
the fight early. The two would exchange punches for a good minute before the
linesmen broke things up.
"He's a big guy, he's got pretty big hands,"
Clowe said of Parros after the game. "Who ever's out there, if they're going to
take liberties on our teammates, I need to step in there and fight or whatever
it may be and that's what happened tonight."
An early attempt to by
referees to control things proved fruitless. Brad Staubitz and Nick Boynton
would square off midway through the period, but that served as the under card
to the Parros-Clowe bout.
Troy Bodie caught Manny Malhotra and Kent
Huskins with an errant high stick with a minute left in the period, giving the
Sharks a four-minute power play.
The Ducks came within five seconds of
killing off the double-minor, but Vlasic slipped a 30-foot shot past Jonas
Hiller off a faceoff at 2:47 of the 2nd period, after Patrick Marleau took a
faceoff draw and slid it back to the defenseman. The goal was only
Vlasic’s 3rd of the season and first in 37 games. He last scored on
November 1st against the Carolina Hurricanes.
"It was a good win by
(Marleau)," said Vlasic. "I just put it on net as quick as I could and it found
a hole. I'm glad I finally got one. "
San Jose made it 2-0 on another
goal by a Sharks defenseman. Blake joined an odd-man rush and slipped past a
Ducks defenseman as Joe Thornton flipped a pass to a spot between the circles.
Blake chipped a knuckling shot past Hiller, who waved at it with his glove. The
Ducks netminder appeared to be fooled by the shot, never coming close with the
glove.
"I didn't see it until it hit my stick," chuckled Blake after
the game. "They always talk about going to the net with your stick down when
you have players as good as that."
The Sharks looked intent on keeping
the foot on the gas to start the 3rd period, coming out of the gate flying.
Things just didn’t turn out the way they had planned when Beleskey beat
Evgeni Nabokov with a 15-foot shot from the left side 1:15 into the period.
Kyle Chipchura stick-handled into the Sharks zone and veered toward the left
corner, drawing two Shark defenders with him. The move created a hole for
Beleskey, who took a drop pass and fired it into the Sharks net to cut the
deficit to 2-1.
Scott Neidermayer took a holding penalty two minutes
later, but the Sharks power play failed to convert.
Jed Ortmeyer would
put the Ducks on the power play midway through the period after inadvertently
backhanding the puck over the glass for a delay of game penalty. The Sharks
would kill the penalty, running their streak to 30 straight without allowing a
goal.
Joe Thornton would help extend that streak by one
after taking a bad tripping penalty behind the Ducks net. Anaheim head coach
Randy Carlyle called a timeout 42 seconds left in the power play, but it was
all for naught as the Sharks dodged the bullet. Carlyle had pulled Hiller
toward the end of the power play, which gave the Ducks the extra attacker even
after Thornton ’s penalty expired. Anaheim made things interesting, but
Marleau would bag the empty-netter with 4.6 seconds left to ice the game.
“We had our chances in the game," Carlyle said. "We kept it close.
We give up the winning goal on a bad change. We had a chance to finish Blake
when he made the pass up, and then we swung away from him and made a bad change
there. The guys coming on the ice didn’t have a chance to make any effect
on the play. Then late in the game we had a couple of chances on the power play
to push it across the line, and that was the difference. ”
Game
Notes:
Blake’s goal was his 237th, moving him into a 10th
place tie with Sharks general manager Doug Wilson on the all-time goals scored
list for defensemen.
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| ANA |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| SJ |
0 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
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| 2nd period - 1, SJ,
Vlasic 3 (Marleau), 2:47, (pp). 2, SJ, Blake 4 (Thornton, Marleau), 16:34. |
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| 3rd period - 3, ANA,
Belesskey 5 (Chipchura, Neidermayer), 1:15. 4, SJ, Marleau 35 (Thornton),
19:54, (en). |
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| 1st period - Thornton,
SJ (interference), 0:10; Beleskey, ANA (slashing), 1:02; Parros, ANA (fighting
major), 3:53; Clowe, SJ (fighting major), 3:53; Staubitz, SJ (goaltender
interference), 6:50; Boynton, ANA (fighting major), 10:29; Staubitz, SJ
(fighting major), 10:29; Bodie, ANA (high sticking – double minor),
18:52. |
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| 2nd period - Heatley, SJ
(high sticking), 4:45; Wisniewski, ANA (hooking), 7:34; Perry, ANA (hooking),
17:31. |
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| 3rd period -
Neidermayer, ANA (holding), 3:22; Ortmeyer, SJ (delay of game – puck over
glass), 9:57; Thornton, SJ (tripping), 16:50. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| ANA - Hiller |
24 |
22 |
| ANA - empty net |
1 |
0 |
| SJ - Nabokov |
27 |
26 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| ANA |
10 |
9 |
8 |
27 |
| SJ |
7 |
13 |
5 |
25 |
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| Referees: Kozari,
O'Halloran. Linesmen: Henderson, Lazarowich. |
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