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Sharks use wild 3rd to upend
Penguins
San Jose scores 4 goals in the final
period
The Sharks slept-walked through the first 40
minutes of Thursday night's marquee matchup with the Pittsburgh Penguins at SAP
Center, then turned on the jets in a wild 3rd period to shock the Penguins with
a crazy 5-3 win. The Sharks scored 4 goals in the final period to avenge a 5-1
loss to the Penguins in early December. Brent Burns scored a pair of goals and
Joe Pavelski added three assists to lead San Jose.
* Urgency was not
at the top of the Sharks agenda early in the contest. San Jose stumbled through
a contentious opening 10 minutes without conceding any goals, but they would
pay for the lack of focus later in the period.
* Rookie forward Olli
Maatta scored the first of his two goals at 15:09 of the opening period. San
Jose failed to clear the zone against the Penguins 4th line, who positioned
things for a Tanner Glass shot from the high slot. Sharks goaltender Antti
Niemi made the pad save, but kicked the puck out to the top of the slot where
Maatta was lurking for the put back goal.
* Burns took a penalty of
the brainless variety, roughing Rob Scuderi with a series of cross checks to
the Penguins defenseman who had fallen to the ice. Chris Kunitz scored his 13th
power play goal of the season on the ensuing man-advantage, one-timing an
Evgeni Malkin feed from the right corner. Malkin and James Neal outmanned Scott
Hannan who was trying to dig the puck out of the corner. Malkin grabbed the
loose puck and sent a pass to the front of the net where Kunitz put a shot past
Niemi for his 29th tally of the year.
* San Jose failed to get much
pressure on Penguins backup goaltender Jeff Zatkoff until late in the 2nd
period. Justin Braun threw the puck to the front of the net from the right wing
boards. The puck bounced off something and slipped past Zatkoff for the Sharks
first goal. The goal was originally credited to Adam Burish, but the official
scorekeeper shifted it to Braun. The goal came with 2:17 left in the period and
seemed to jumpstart San Jose.
* Brooks Orpik was sent off for slashing
with 58 seconds left in the period as the Sharks began to pick up the pace. The
penalty carried over to the 3rd period, but San Jose failed to convert. They
would go scoreless on 4 power play chances throughout the evening.
*
Matt Nieto almost slit his own team's wrists by taking a double minor for high
sticking Simon Despres 2:26 into the 3rd period, but his teammates bailed him
out. Jason Demers stepped in front of a cross-ice pass attempt by the Penguins.
Demers then pushed the puck up ice to Patrick Marleau who took on Malkin in a
1-on-1 race up the ice. Malkin had clear position on Marleau, but the Sharks
centerman faked left and cut back to his right, getting around the Russian
forward enough to put a backhand shot past Zatkoff. The short-handed goal was
the 16th of Marleau's career.
* Maatta quickly subdued the crowd with
his 2nd goal while Nieto was still parked in the penalty box. Pittsburgh went
back to the pass through the slot from right to left, exposing Niemi's right
side. Maatta took a feed from Brandon Sutter before snapping home his 9th goal
of the season past Niemi.
* San Jose tied it back up less than 2
minutes later when Thornton slid a pass to Pavelski along the end boards, who
then sent a centering feed to Burns in the slot for the one-time chance that
beat Zatkoff. Pavelski placed a perfect pass on Burns' tape as the converted
defenseman split two Pittsburgh defenders.
* Thornton would score what
turned out to be the game winning goal at 14:21 of the period in peculiar
fashion. Pavelski kicked the puck up the left wing boards where Thornton was
lurking. The Sharks captain grabbed the puck, crossed the blueline and appeared
to just soft toss the puck at the net from 90 feet out. The puck may have been
partially deflected by Maatta, but in any case, it knuckled on Zatkoff who
failed to stop it from hitting twine for the 4-3 Sharks lead.
*
Marleau should have been credited with a goal in the final minute after he was
hauled down as he skated the puck toward an empty net. Had he not been impeded,
Marleau would have easily scored an empty-net goal, but the on-ice officials
failed to credit him as they should have done by rule.
* Burns added a
cherry on top of the 3rd period treat when he snapped a shot into the open net
from the right wing boards.
* Penguins captain Sydney Crosby was held
scoreless, but more importantly he was on the ice for all 5 Sharks goals. I was
the first time the NHL's scoring leader recorded a -5 in his career.
Post Game Quotables:
Head Coach Todd McLellan: "I
thought that's as physical as we've played in a while. We were really engaged.
And it's not about running out of position and big hits. It's about body
position, playing on the inside, knocking people off 50-50 pucks, playing
around the opposition's net, even in front of the net. It's nice to get
rewarded for that type of effort."
Patrick Marleau: "It is really
good, and we have to build off it for sure. I think that was probably one of
our better second periods, especially with the physicality we had. We were able
to hem them in a little bit. It feels good when you play that way-- you want to
bottle it up and keep playing that way. It's a hard way to play, but we go get
some rest, take care of ourselves, and keep replicating it."
Raffi Torres: "I think tonight was a solid team
effort. This is how you become a team; this is how you start knowing that you
can win these kind of games against teams like that. Everybody was in, four
lines, six d. Ultimately, our top guys were good tonight, real good, and that's
how we're going to win games. Guys like myself and Sheppard and kind of the
supporting cast need to create some energy for these guys so that they can get
some room out there. And they showed it tonight."
Jason Demers: "It
was awesome. It's fun to come to the rink to play a game like that. It was
playoff hockey. It was hard, it was dirty, it was everything. I think the refs
managed it well. They made a lot of good calls and they let it go when they
should, and both teams played hard. Their goalie played great. I think both
team just played great games, and we came out on top."
Head Coach Dan
Bylsma: "They play not only a physical game but a fast game and I think it's
something that they counter quickly. They play that type of game. We just
weren't able to negate that by playing back in the other end."
Chris
Kunitz: "Early in the game we had enough going the other way where we were able
to get some momentum ourselves. As the game wore on they just took it over, and
we were hanging on and they eventually score."
Sidney Crosby: "They
got a big goal there on their penalty kill. And that was a big boost, I'm sure.
But they we got the lead back shortly after and then when they tied it 3-3 they
seemed to come pretty hard after that. I think the whole second half of the
game we were on our heels a bit."
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| PIT |
2 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
| SJ |
0 |
1 |
4 |
5 |
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| 1st period - 1, PIT,
Maatta 8 (Glass, Goc), 15:09. 2, PIT, Kunitz 29 (Malkin), 16:21, (pp). |
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| 2nd period - 3, SJ,
Braun 4 (Wingels, Desjardins), 17:43. |
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| 3rd period - 4, SJ,
Marleau 26 (Demers), 5:18, (sh). 5, PIT, Maatta 9 (Sutter, Jokinen), 5:39,
(pp). 6, SJ, Burns 16 (Pavelski, Thornton), 6:52. 7, SJ, Thornton 9 (Pavelski),
14:21. 8, SJ, Burns 17 (Pavelski, Vlasic), 19:57, (en). |
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| 1st period - Jokinen,
PIT (hooking), 9:11; Burns, SJ (roughing), 15:40. |
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| 2nd period - Irwin, SJ
(hooking), 1:55; Glass, PIT (hooking), 4:30; Goc, PIT (diving), 9:20; Hannan,
SJ (interference), 9:20; Orpik, PIT (slashing), 19:02. |
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| 3rd period - Nieto, SJ
(high sticking - double minor), 2:26; Jokinen, PIT (holding), 7:34. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| PIT - Zatkoff |
46 |
42 |
| PIT - empty net |
1 |
0 |
| SJ - Niemi |
22 |
19 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| PIT |
10 |
8 |
4 |
22 |
| SJ |
13 |
18 |
16 |
47 |
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| Referees: Joanette,
Rooney. Linesmen: Galloway, Heyer. |
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