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Home cooking pots Sharks
win
San Jose holds off Avalanche to start home
stand
The Sharks returned home from their recent road
trip on Friday night, taking on a desperate Colorado Avalanche team at SAP
Center. With a little more than a month to play and the Avalanche on the
outside, looking in at the playoff race, Colorado had every reason to lay in on
the line. The Sharks had other ideas, as they scored four times to hold off the
Avalanche 4-3 in regulation.
Marcus Sorensen was the man of the hour,
as the young Swede scored a pair of goals to lead San Jose. Martin Jones made
22 saves to help the Sharks keep pace with the Conference leading Calgary
Flames.
San Jose kicked off a busy March, which throws 15 games at
them in 31 days. The Sharks played the first of 11 home games. Home cooking is
something the Sharks sorely missed.
Sorensen staked the Sharks to a
1-0 lead 4:18 into the contest, by redirecting a Brent Burns feed from the left
wing boards. Sorensen sat parked to the left of the slot, when Burns gathered a
faceoff draw and skated up the boards. The Sharks defenseman made a right turn
to curl toward the slot before sending the puck to Sorensen. The Swede got his
stick blade on the puck, lifting it over Semyon Varlamov's glove hand for his
12th goal of the season.
Timo Meier extended the Sharks lead to two
goal, when he rifled a shot from the outside of the left circle while on the
fly. Meier used defenseman Erik Johnson as a screen, as the two skated into the
Colorado zone. Varlamov picked up the puck too late, as it floated past his
left shoulder for Meier's 22nd goal.
The two goal lead was short lived
once Nikita Zadorov notched his 7th goal of the season. Zadorov ripped a shot
from the left dot after the Avalanche cycled the puck out of the right corner,
moving it around the top of the zone. Marc-Edouard Vlasic had Matt Calvert tied
up in front of the left post, but that created a diversion that impeded
goaltender Martin Jones' sight line on the shot.
The Sharks put on a
forechecking clinic over the final 4 minutes of the period. San Jose controlled
the Avalanche defensive zone with the defensive corps continuously pinching to
keep pucks in the zone.
That paid dividends late, when Sorensen
punched home his second tally of the night after Kevin Labanc moved the puck
down low and Tomas Hertl bounced the puck off the left post. Sorensen had
position on Johnson, as the two faced the goal mouth from the right post.
Sorensen used that position to easily jam the puck over the goal line as
Varlamov allowed the puck to slip behind him.
A Brendan Dillon
slashing penalty 9:32 into the 3rd period setup the second power play of the
evening for the Avalanche. Mikko Rantanen made the Sharks pay, when he
converted his 28th goal of the season 36 seconds into the power play.
Samuel Girard was sent off for tripping Meier on a scoring chance in front of
the Avalanche net with 8:35 to play. The Sharks cashed in when Joe Pavelski
pumped home a one-time chance from the left side after Kevin Labanc fed the
Sharks captain from the slot.
Colorado would not go away. Girard made it a 4-3 game
6:33 left in regulation by snapping a shot from the right dot that squeezed
between Jones and the right post. The goal was the 4th of the season for
Girard.
Colorado pulled Varlamov with 1:33 left in regulation, and the
Avalanche seemed to win every faceoff in that last 93 seconds to make things
interesting. Colorado worked the puck to the front of the Sharks goal three
times, but Jones kept it out of his net to earn his 30th victory of the season.
It was the fourth consecutive season with 30 wins or more.
Game Notes:
* Marcus Sorensen was sporting a nasty scar on his
upper lip as he made his return to the lineup after taking a puck to the face
in Columbus on the Sharks most recent road trip.
* Gabriel Landeskog
recorded three primary assists in the game for Colorado.
* Rookie
defenseman Radim Simek continued to show why head coach Peter DeBoer has so
much confidence in the youngster. Simek was a +2, laid out 3 hits, but played
fantastic positional hockey on Friday night.
* Joe Thornton continues
to improve his game as he tries getting back to 100%. The Sharks centerman had
one assist and was 10 of 13 on draws in the game.
* The Sharks play a
rare Sunday evening game against the Chicago Blackhawks. It will be the first
of two meetings between the two teams this month at SAP Center.
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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 |
| COL |
0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
| SJ |
1 |
2 |
1 |
4 |
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| 1st period - 1, SJ,
Sorensen 12 (Burns, Thornton), 4:18. |
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| 2nd period - 2, SJ,
Meier 22 (Pavelski), 2:35. 3, COL, Zadorov 7 (Landeskog, Cole), 4:55. 4, SJ,
Sorensen 13 (Hertl, Labanc), 19:36. |
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| 3rd period - 5, COL
Rantanen 28 (Landeskog, Kerfoot), 10:08, (pp). 6, SJ, Pavelski 36 (Labanc,
Couture), 12:39, (pp). 7, COL, Girard 4 (Landeskog, MacKinnon), 13:27. |
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| 1st period - Simek, SJ
(hooking), 13:48. |
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| 2nd period - Cole. COL
(hooking), 10:48. |
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| 3rd period - Nemeth, COL
(delay of game - puck over glass), 2:37; Dillon, SJ (slashing), 9:32; Girard,
COL (tripping), 11:25. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| COL - Varlamov |
40 |
36 |
| SJ - Jones |
25 |
22 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| COL |
6 |
7 |
12 |
25 |
| SJ |
9 |
18 |
13 |
40 |
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| Referees: Morton,
Furlatt. Linesmen: Knorr, Mach. |
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