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Sharks bust some balls in
LA
3-goal 1st leads SJ to second straight
win
The Sharks turned back into the road warriors that
vaulted them into a playoff spot last season on Wednesday night with a
commanding 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center in Southern
California. San Jose scored early with a flurry of 1st period goals, then
leaned on Martin Jones to snap the Kings 5 game winning streak.
Beating any division opponent is nice, but beating the Kings is gravy. The
Sharks took advantage of some lapses in the Kings attention span, and then
weathered a big 2nd period push by the Kings with solid defense and timely
goaltending to keep pace with the Western Conference leaders.
The 3rd
place Sharks sit just 7 points from the 12th spot in the West, which highlights
the parity in the league at the quarter mark of the season. San Jose is 8-3-0
over their last 10 games, but they still lost ground to the Chicago Blackhawks
and St Louis Blues over that span. San Jose would have been tied with the Kings
had they lost.
Losing was a notion that was easily dispatched in the
opening 20 minutes of play.
Rookie Kevin Labanc opened the game's
scoring 3:32 into the contest when he blasted home a one-tme chance off a
2-on-1 break. The puck was deflected out of the Sharks zone, springing Logan
Couture up the right wing. The forward held the puck until defenseman Drew
Doughty dropped to a knee to fend off any notion of a shot from Couture, but he
elected to pass to Labanc on the off wing. Labanc left no doubt where his shot
was headed by unloading on the puck with a booming shot that easily beat Kings
goaltender Petr Budaj.
Couture pushed the Sharks lead to 2-0 with 55
seconds left in the period, chipping a rebound past Budaj after Joonas Donskoi
fired a shot on net from the high slot. Couture had the presence of mind to cut
back toward the net as the puck was moving away from the net as Donskoi skated
toward the blueline. A quick pivot setup the forward for a shot that Couture
cleaned up for his 9th goal of the season.
San Jose was content to
head to the 1st intermission with a two goal lead, but rookie Ryan Carpenter
had other ideas. Playing in his 4th NHL game, the forward chipped the puck up
the right wing boards toward Mikkel Boedker but it skipped past his linemate
and Kings defender. Carpenter kept skating and found himself on another 2-on-1.
Budaj may have been thinking of the Labanc goal, and reacted a split second too
late when Carpenter elected to shoot rather than pass the puck. Pure joy best
describes the look on Carpenter's face as he celebrated with the other Sharks
on the ice.
The Kings likely received a tongue lashing from head coach
Darryl Sutter during the intermission, because his team came out flying to
start the 2nd period.
Los Angeles pressed with reckless abandon, coming
within a fraction of getting a puck past goaltender Martin Jones. Defenseman
Brent Burns dove into the crease behind Jones to stop a would be goal to keep
the Sharks three-goal lead intact.
Dustin Brown finally Jones at 3:01
of the period, lifting a shot from the doorstep that hit the underside of the
net. The on-ice referees missed the score and allowed play to resume until the
goal horn was sounded with the puck at center ice. A short review confirmed the
good goal, fueling the Kings would be comeback.
The pressure continued
until the midway point of the period, at which time the Kings ran out of juice
and the Sharks settled down. Puck possession became the story of the second
half of the period.
If the Kings tried to mount another push in the
3rd period, you would have never noticed. San Jose restricted the Kings to
single shot on goal through the first 8 minutes of the period and 3 shots by
the midpoint of the frame.
Sutter was forced to pull Budaj with just
under 2 minutes remaining, but Couture added his 3rd point of the game by
lobbing the puck the length of the ice into the empty net. Doughty tried to
intercept the puck by racing to his net, but he ended up sliding crotch first
into the right post.
Game Notes:
* Kevin Labanc's
reward for his goal was the 2nd fewest number of shifts on the nigth for San
Jose.
* 11 Shark skaters recorded a +1 or higher. Couture, Joel Ward,
Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Justin Braun were all +3 on the night.
* San
Jose won only 22 of 59 faceoffs for an anemic 37% conversion rate. That's close
to a season low if not the poorest performance in the faceoff circle this
season.
* Joe Pavelski recorded a game high 7 hits to lead all
skaters.
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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 |
| SJ |
3 |
0 |
1 |
4 |
| LA |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
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| 1st period - 1, SJ,
Labanc 2 (Couture, Ward), 3:32. 2, SJ, Couture 8 (Donskoi, Ward), 19:05. 3, SJ,
Carpenter 1 (Boedker), 19:35. |
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| 2nd period - 4, LA,
Brown 4 (Gaborik, Dowd), 3:01, (pp). |
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| 3rd period - 5, SJ,
Couture 9 (unassisted), 18:43, (en). |
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| 1st period - Martin, SJ
(holding), 5:42. |
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| 2nd period - Labanc, SJ
(hooking), 1:23. |
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| 3rd period - Forbort, LA
(cross checking), 5:12. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| SJ - Jones |
27 |
26 |
| LA - Budaj |
23 |
20 |
| - empty net |
1 |
0 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| SJ |
7 |
9 |
8 |
24 |
| LA |
7 |
11 |
9 |
27 |
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| Referees:
Schlenker, Watson. Linesmen: Nagy, Murchison. |
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