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The lights go out on Blue
Jackets
Tomas Hertl scores a pair in Sharks
win
Early season games don't always seem like must win
game, except when they come against teams in rebuilding mode like the Columbus
Blue Jackets. Those are games that you need to put in the bank as automatic
wins. The Sharks did that on Thursday night, taking their season series with
the Blue Jackets with a 3-1 win at SAP Center. San Jose overcame a brown-out
and Sergei Bobrovsky en route to their 5th win of the season. Tomas Hertl
scored a pair of goals and Martin Jones turned aside 24 shots to lead the
Sharks.
The Sharks approach was best described as methodical. They
played a typical Sharks game, slow playing their hand as they waited for the
opportunity to strike. Special teams was the big differentiator as the Sharks
went 2-for-2 on the power play and 3-for-3 on the penalty kill. Both skills
rank in the middle of the pack in the NHL, which is a far cry from the start of
the season when the penalty kill was ranked at the bottom of the league.
San Jose's kill was forced to go to work early in the contest after
Paul Martin was sent off for hooking David Savard a minute in. Columbus
generated 6 shots on their man advantage, but Jones stayed calm between the
pipes, turning aside everything.
Markus Nutivaara put the Sharks on
the power play midway through the period after he was called for holding Joel
Ward. San Jose converted when Joonas Donskoi took a David Schlemko at the right
dot then whipped a shot past Bobrovksy for his 1st goal of the season.
Hertl was whistled for tripping Sam Wagner with 4:10 left in the period, but
the Sharks held their ground once again.
The 2nd period was more
typical of the Sharks, but it was Bobrovsky who stood tall, turning aside 11
shots in the middle frame. Ward had a particularly tough time, missing on a
breakaway chance early in the period, then followed that up by missing on a
one-time chance from 10-feet out just moments later.
The Blue Jackets
started to tilt the ice in their favor toward the end of the period, but Scott
Hartnell missed on a wide open chance 6 minutes to play. Things may have played
out much differently for San Jose had a technical glitch forced a premature
intermission after the bank of lights which provides the playing surface with
its lighting went dark with 2:42 left in the period.
It was decided to
send both teams to their respective locker rooms and hold the intermission
break while the electrical situation was sorted out. Both teams returned to
finish out the period, then promptly switched attacking zones and started the
3rd period.
Brendan Dillon appeared to push the Sharks lead to 2
goals early in the 3rd period, by blasting a shot from the blueline that
deflected off a pair of Blue Jacket skaters before beating Bobrovsky. Blue
Jackets head coach John Tortarella challenged the play for an offside
infraction. After a review that last a good 8 to 10 minutes, officials ruled
that Chris Tierney was offside. Video showed Tierney's trailing skate lifting
off the ice while his lead skate was in the Blue Jackets zone, negating the
goal.
Jack Johnson's overzealous play on Patrick Marleau behind the
Blue Jackets net sent the Sharks forward head over heels. That would send
Johnson to the penalty box for tripping with 9:11 to play.
San Jose
made good on their 2nd power play chance of the game when Hertl punched home
the puck from the doorstep after a Schlemko shot hit him in the torso and
dropped to his feet. Hertl got away with a cross check on defenseman Zach
Werenski that cleared out the shooting lane and eliminated and defensive
opposition.
Hartnell scored with 2:50 to play to make it a one-goal
game again, giving Tortarella a reason to pull Bobrovsky. The Sharks missed on
a handful of empty net chances until Hertl capped the game with his 4th goal of
the season with .8 seconds left.
Game Notes:
* The
Sharks cleaned up their faceoff woes to a degree, winning 26 of 53 draws (49%),
which was a far cry from their 30% performances the past three games. Joe
Pavelsk won 8 of 12 draws to lead San Jose.
* Brent Burns led all
skaters with 5 shots on goal. Burns just missed on his own open net chance in
the 1st period.
* San Jose blocked 21 shots, led by Burns with 7.
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What did you
think of this story? Post your comments on the
Feeder Forums |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| CBJ |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| SJ |
1 |
0 |
2 |
3 |
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| 1st period - 1, SJ,
Donskoi 1 (Schlemko), 12:59, (pp). |
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| 3rd period - 2, SJ,
Hertl 3 (Vlasic, Schlemko), 12:05, (pp). 3, CBJ, Hartnell 2 (Sedlak, Saad),
17:10. 4, SJ, Hertl 4 (Thornton), 19:59, (en). |
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| 1st period - Martin, SJ
(hooking), 1:02; Nutivaara, CBJ (holding), 11:20; Hertl, SJ (tripping),
15:50. |
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| 2nd period - Karlsson,
SJ (high sticking), 19:10. |
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| 3rd period - Johnson,
CBJ (tripping), 10:39. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| CBJ - Bobrovsky |
28 |
26 |
| CBJ - empty net |
1 |
0 |
| SJ - Jones |
25 |
24 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| CBJ |
13 |
4 |
8 |
25 |
| SJ |
10 |
11 |
8 |
29 |
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| Referees: Pochmara,
Morton. Linesmen: Heyer, Mach. |
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