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Senators impose one goal
limit
Sharks drop 4-1 decision at home
One of the things San Jose hoped for in acquiring
Brent Burns, was to step up their offensive production by the blueline. They
got a lesson in how to involve the defense in the scoring on Thursday night as
the visiting Ottawa Senators rolled to a 4-1 win over San Jose at HP Pavilion.
The Senators defensive corps leads the league in scoring from that position,
something the Sharks may want to focus on as the stretch run to the playoffs
approaches.
Four Ottawa blueliners contributed to the Senators scoring
on Thursday, including Erik Karlsson, who bagged his 7th goal of the season in
the white washing.
"I was disappointed with critical moments in the
game," said Sharks head coach Todd McLellan. "I didn't think we had a lot of
polish on our passes. Then the ones that were on the tape, nothing happened
after that. The turning point had to be the turnover in the second that led to
the odd man rush. The second turning point was our power play not producing."
San Jose looked primed to continue their dominance over Ottawa, who
hadn't won in San Jose in eight years, throwing everything they had at Senators
goaltender Craig Anderson. San Jose's history with Anderson also suggested that
they may have an easy go of things, but that turned out to be one big missed
opportunity.
Anderson turned the tables on the Sharks, winning for the
7th time in his last 9 road games. Anderson's lone blemish was a Brad
Winchester goal 3:10 into the game. Winchester one-timed a feed from Andrew
Desjardins from the high slot that found the back of the net after San Jose
pushed the pressure deep into the Senators zone.
"It's just me giving
the team a chance to win. It doesn't matter whether they get one or two right
off the bat," said Anderson. "It's just a matter of making sure they don't get
the next one and giving our guys an opportunity to get back in the game. Our
power play has been outstanding all year. [Jason] Spezza and Alfie (Daniel
Alfredsson), these guys are just top-notch scorers. For us to score three or
four goals a game, obviously you're not going to get it every night, but it's
nice to get it almost every night."
That would be it for any San Jose
scoring. They outshot the Senators 16-7 in the opening period, but Anderson
denied his adversaries with a number of solid stops. The Sharks helped him out
by abandoning the attack in favor of a perimeter game that did little to
challenge the Senators.
"We had some chances to score early on and we
felt we probably could have had a couple that could have changed the look of
the game," added Sharks captain Joe Thornton. "But it seemed like they only had
six or seven chances and they made good on a lot of them. For whatever reason,
it just wasn't bouncing our way tonight."
Ottawa used their speed to
chip away at the Sharks defense, tying the game midway through the opening
period. Kyle Turris roofed a shot through traffic after the Sharks started to
chase the puck. Sergei Gonchar took a cross-ice pass from Daniel Alfredsson on
the right side, before sending a pass through the slot to Turris near the
bottom of the left circle. Sharks goaltender Antti Niemi didn't stand a chance
after screens by two of his own teammates made it impossible to see Turris'
shot.
Karlsson made it 2-1 Senators 4:30 into the 2nd period after the
Sharks narrowly missed putting a puck past Anderson. Ottawa countered with a
3-on-2 break that ended with Karlsson one-timing a Turris feed past Niemi from
the slot.
Colin Greening made it a two-goal game with 5 minutes
remaining in the period. The Senators forward sent a quick wrist shot through
defenseman Justin Braun's skates from the top of the right circle past Niemi,
after Jamie McGinn was sent off for kneeing Jason Spezza. Niemi was screened by
Braun and was late to get his glove over to the near post.
Greening put the Sharks out of their misery with
another goal midway through the 3rd period. The unscreened shot from the high
slot seemed to fool Niemi, even though the line of site was wide open. Greening
simply whipped a 35-foot wrister that caught the upper right corner and that
was that.
"We're very confident right now," said Greening. "It just
shows that we're a very good road team. You gotta be able to get points on the
road, especially when you're coming on the West Coast. We have three-hour time
change that['s] not normal. Obviously, this is really a tough place to play.
I've never experienced it before, but talking to veteran guys, they always say
this is a very tough place to play."
Back to back penalties by Joe
Pavelski in the letter half of the period killed any opportunity for a miracle.
"We're trying to grow and be a good team, and we're growing at a good
rate - a better than expected rate," said Senators head coach Paul MacLean. "We
just have to keep doing it. The biggest test for us is consistency and to this
point since the Christmas break, we've been really consistent. We have to work
at that."
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think of this story? Post your comments on the
Feeder Forums |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| OTT |
1 |
2 |
1 |
4 |
| SJ |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
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| 1st period - 1, SJ,
Winchester 6 (Desjardins, Boyle), 3:10. 2, OTT, Turris 4 (Gonchar, Alfredsson),
10:09. |
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| 2nd period - 3, OTT,
Karlsson 7 (Turris, Foligno), 4:30. 4, OTT, Greening 10 (Kuba, Spezza), 14:50,
(pp). |
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| 3rd period - 5, OTT,
Greening 11 (Spezza, Cowen), 9:34. |
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| 1st period - Desjardins,
SJ (tripping), 12:22; Cowen, OTT (illegal check to head), 13:08; Gochar, OTT
(slashing), 14:47; Marleau, SJ (goaltender interfernce), 14:47. |
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| 2nd period - Cowen, OTT
(tripping), 5:14; Neil, OTT (charging), 11:57; McGinn, SJ (kneeing),
14:28. |
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| 3rd period - Pavelski,
SJ (tripping), 12:16; Pavelski, SJ (tripping), 14:41. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| OTT - Anderson |
37 |
36 |
| SJ - Niemi |
21 |
17 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| OTT |
7 |
8 |
6 |
21 |
| SJ |
16 |
12 |
9 |
37 |
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| Referees: Kimmerly,
Kozari. Linesmen: Rody, Wheler. |
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