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Marleau can't miss in 4-goal
outburst
Sharks forward sets franshise record for
goals in a period
The Sharks were in need of a pick-me-up on Monday
night, as they battled with the Colorado Avalanche in the back end of a
home-and-home series in Denver. Patrick Marleau obliged by scoring 4 goals in a
single period, something no other Sharks player had ever done before. Marleau
snapped a 1-1 tie in the 3rd period, then buried the Avalanche with three more
tallies. San Jose slept through the first 40 minutes, fighting to generate much
offense, then turned to their former captain to save the day.
Call it
the mid-season blues, or the grind of an 82 game season, but the Sharks have
struggled mightily against the NHL's worst team. San Jose barely escaped an
embarrassing loss to Colorado with an overtime victory less than 48 hours
earlier in San Jose.
The start of Monday night's affair wasn't exactly
the shock and awe approach that you'd expect against a team that has only won
13 games this season. San Jose struggled to get much going. Both teams traded 9
shots in the opening period.
Luckily for San Jose, one of those 9 came
off the stick of Brent Burns, who snapped a shot from the right wing boards at
a sever angle that Avalanche goaltender Spencer Martin mishandled. Burns shot
would have sailed wide of the net, but Martin let it hit his pad and deflect
into his own goal.
San Jose's special teams fell flat all night long.
San Jose went 0-for-4 on the power play, including a partial 5-on-3 chance in
the 3rd period. The A Melker Karlsson hooking penalty 8:52 into the 2nd period
allowed the Avalanche to tie the game at 1-1 when Jerome Iginla beat Martin
Jones with a one-time chance. Mikhail Grigorenko setup Iginla with a long pass
through the slot from the right wing. Iginala's shot split a narrow gap between
the left post and Jones' skate.
An injury to Joonas Donskoi earlier in
the game forced Sharks head coach Peter DeBoer to juggle his lines. One of
those changes was to pull Marleau off the top line and skate with Logan Couture
and Mikkel Boedker.
Marleau's big night started 2:53 into the 3rd
period, when he redirected a Brent Burns shot as he sat perched at the top of
the crease. The Sharks cycled the puck out of the right corner, whipping it
around the end boards to Burns at the left point. Marleau set up shop as the
Avalanche defense tracked the puck, leaving him unattended in front of the net.
Speed came into play on Marleau's next goal. The speedy forward took a
feed up the right wing then raced past defenseman Patrick Wiercioch. As he
straddled the right end line, Marleau took a step to his left, which drew
Martin over to cover the right post. Marleau changed directions and whipped
around the back of the net and wrapped the puck around the left post for his
14th goal of the season.
Marleau had a chance to recharge his batteries after
taking a hooking penalty at 8:26. As his night would have it, the penalty
expired just as the Sharks gained control of the puck. Burns fed him the puck
as he stepped out of the box, setting up a 2-on-1 break with Joe Pavelski.
Marleau exchanged passes with Pavelski before tapping it past Martin for the
natural hat trick.
Of the 13,803 in attendance, several were Sharks
fans willing to part with their hats as a fair number of them rained down on
the ice after Marleau's 3rd goal. It was an odd site for a road game, but there
were enough lids on the ice to stop a bit of a delay to get the rink cleaned
up.
Colorado made it a 4-2 game with just over 8 minutes to play.
Nikita Zadorov ripped a shot form the right point that was either tipped or it
hit Andreas Martinsen at the top of the crease. De Boer challenged the goal as
it appeared that Martinsen's stick tangled with Jones as Brendan Dillon failed
to clear the Avalanche winger away from his goaltender.
Any notion of
a comeback were quickly squashed when Marleau added his 4th tally of the period
3:37 to play. Marc-Edouard Vlasic spotted Marleau loitering at the Avalanche
blueline, hitting him with a long pass from the Sharks zone. Marleau zipped
past Wiercioch and Francois Beauchemin on his way to the net, before deeking
Martin with a move to his backhand. Marleau would have likely been awarded a
penalty shot on the play had he not scored, as Wiercioch hooked him.
Game Notes:
* Joonas Donskoi was injured at the end of the 1st
period and did not return. The Sharks forward just came off the disabled list
with an upper body injury.
* Patrick Marleau's last hat trick was also
in Colorado on November 20th, 2011. The last player to score 4 goals in a 3rd
period was Mario Lemieux, who did it in 1997.
* Logan Couture finished
the night with a +5 plus-minus. Boedker and Marleau finished with +4's.
* San Jose won only 37% of draws on the night. Joe Thornton was 2-of-9
on faceoffs and Chris Tierney finished 4-of-11.
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think of this story? Post your comments on the
Feeder Forums |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| SJ |
1 |
0 |
4 |
5 |
| COL |
0 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
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| 1st period - 1, SJ,
Burns 20 (Schlemko, Couture), 19:00. |
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| 2nd period - 2, COL,
Iginla 6 (Grigorenko, Zadorov), 10:02, (pp). |
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| 3rd period - 3, SJ,
Marleau 13 (Vlasic, Boedker), 2:27. 4, SJ, Marleau 14 (Couture, Burns), 5:57.
5, SJ, Marleau 15 (Pavelski, Burns), 10:35. 6, COL, Martinsen 2 (Zadorov,
Comeau), 11:57. 7, SJ, Marleau 16 (Vlasic), 16:23. |
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| 1st period - Wiercioch,
COL (interference), 5:47. |
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| 2nd period - Karlsson,
SJ (hooking), 8:52. |
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| 3rd period - Marleau, SJ
(hooking), 8:26; Zadorov, COL (delay of game - puck over glass), 12:39; Tyutin,
COL (holding the stick), 13:15; Thornton, SJ (interference), 16:23; Bench, COL
(too many men), 19:09. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| SJ - Jones |
28 |
26 |
| COL - Martin |
24 |
19 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| SJ |
9 |
4 |
13 |
26 |
| COL |
9 |
4 |
15 |
28 |
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| Referees: Peel,
Kozari. Linesmen: Cherrey, Murchison. |
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