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Sharks drop 5th
straight
Even the Canucks are beating up on the
Sharks
News flash. The Sharks stink. They stink so bad,
teams they traditionally have feasted on are coming to SAP Center to settle
scores. The Vancouver Canucks is one of those teams. The Canucks turned the
tables on the hapless Sharks on Saturday night, applying a 5-2 beat down in one
of the most lopsided games of the season. San Jose fell behind 4-0 before they
answered with a short-handed goal in the 3rd period, but this game was long
decided.
Sharks head coach Peter DeBoer called his team soft earlier
this week. After showing some fire on Friday night in their 3-2 loss to
Winnipeg, the softness showed back up. Nobody in a teal sweater showed much
fight in this one and the Canucks took advantage. As has become all too common,
the Sharks allowed the opposition to take an early lead. Brandon Sutter saw to
that when he beat Patrick Marleau and defenseman Tim Heed to an open spot on
the left side of the net. Josh Leivo fired a shot off goaltender Aaron Dell,
but the rebound trickled over to the left side where Sutter swooped in to bag
his 4th goal of the season.
The hockey gods frowned on the Sharks
later in the period when Brock Boeser threw a puck to the front of the net from
the right corner, but Heed deflected it and softening the pass. By slowing it
down, the pass floated to the front of the net where Elias Petterson waved at
it as defenseman Brendan Dillon lost track of it. Petterson got his stick blade
on the puck, which was a foot off the ice, pushing it past Dell for the 2-0
lead.
If the Sharks got the tongue lashing that they deserved during
the first intermission, it didn't do a thing to revive the Sharks energy that
they displayed on Friday night. Vancouver capitalized 45 seconds into the 2nd
period when Jake Viratnen raced up ice on a partial breakaway and threw a puck
that got past Dell but didn't cross the goal line. That is, until Dell extended
his right skate carrying the puck across the goal line.
Referee Steve
Kozari called it no goal and his partner Francis Charron signaled it a goal.
The two went to video replay which shows the puck appear to cross the goal
line, but it wasn't definitive. Kozari riled the sub-sellout crowd by
indicating that it "definitively crossed the goal line," and it just like that,
the Canucks had a 3-0 lead.
Things went from bad to worse for San Jose
when Adam Gaudette threw a puck at the front of the net, banking it off a skate
and into the Sharks net for the 4-0 lead. It looked as if the pass hit Tanner
Pearson in the skate, but the official scorekeeper awarded the goal to
Gaudette.
Erik Karlsson got his name in the box score when he
took an interference in the offensive zone at 10:16 of the 3rd period. San Jose
countered when Marc-Edouard Vlasic tipped a Barclay Goodrow lead pass past
goaltender Thatcher Demko to get the Sharks on the board.
San Jose
appeared to have a 2-on-none break disrupted on the next faceoff but neither
referee saw it. Joe Thornton took it upon himself to voice his displeasure with
the officiating, which drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to put the
Sharks down two men.
Pettersson capitalized on the Sharks thinned
defense, scoring his 2nd goal of the game at 12:23 to push the Canucks lead
back to four goals.
Evander Kane scored a meaningless goal with 42
seconds left in the contest to give the impression that the game was closer
than it actually was.
Game Notes:
* The energy in the
building is becoming so deflating that the Sharks aren't even selling out
Saturday night games. Only 16,480 paid for this one, and about 15k+ decided to
show up.
* The Sharks continue to fizzle on offense. The likes of
Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl and Timo Meier continue to be absent from the
scoresheet.
* The plus / minus losers in teal contained their dismal
numbers on Saturday night. Erik Karlsson and Brent Burns were only a -1 each,
which was an improvement from their prior two games.
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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 |
| VAN |
2 |
2 |
1 |
5 |
| SJ |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
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| 1st period - 1, VAN,
Sutter 4 (Leivo), 4:17. 2, VAN, Petterson 5 (Boeser), 12:46. |
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| 2nd period - 3, VAN,
Virtanen 4 (Edler, Myers), 0:45. 4, VAN, Gaudette 2 (unassisted), 5:11. |
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| 3rd period - 5, SJ,
Vlasic 2 (Goodrow, Burns), 10:51, (sh). 6, VAN, Petterson 6 (), 12:23, (pp). 7,
SJ, Kane 8 (Labanc, E. Karlsson), 19:38. |
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| 1st period - Burns, SJ
(interference), 10:39. |
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| 2nd period - Edler, VAN
(holding), 12:44; Virtanen, VAN (slashing), 17:56; Thornton, SJ (cross
checking), 20:00. |
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| 3rd period - Eriksson,
VAN (tripping), 2:38; E. Karlsson, SJ (interference), 10:16; Thornton, SJ
(unsportsmanlike conduct), 11:36. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| VAN - Demko |
26 |
24 |
| SJ - Dell |
28 |
23 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| VAN |
14 |
8 |
6 |
28 |
| SJ |
8 |
8 |
10 |
26 |
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| Referees: Kozari,
Charron. Linesmen: Driscoll, Smith. |
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