The Sharks lost a bad one on Thursday night
when they allowed a 2-0 lead to evaporate against the St Louis Blues. Rather
than learn from their errors, the Sharks play almost a carbon copy on Saturday,
coughing up another 2-0 lead, once again allowing the opposition to score 4
goals in the 2nd period. This time, the Washington Capitals handed out the
lesson of the day, beating San Jose 8-3.
It was another nice start for
San Jose, who scored a power play goal 12 minutes in. Sonny Milano was sent off
for high sticking and the Sharks capitalized when Erik Karlsson hit Tomas Hertl
with a lead pass just outside the Capitals blueline. Hertl carried the puck in
on net and put a shot on Darcy Kuemper that was stopped. Hertl kept with the
play and punched home a second chance for his first non-empty net goal in 19
games.
Alexander Barabanov double the Sharks lead at 15:30 after
chipping home a Logan Couture feed past Kuemper. The Sharks pushed the puck
behind the Capitals net when Couture poked as it to move it to the space above
the crease where Barabanov was parked. The goal was the young Russian's 13th of
the season.
San Jose out-shot Washington 20-5 in the opening frame and
it looked like the game would be a route. It was, but not for the Sharks.
The Capitals would score the next 5 goals to gut-punch San Jose. The
Sharks held a 27-7 advantage on the shot counter when Dylan Strome hit Craig
Smith with a pass on the right wing. Smith carried it up the wing before
whipping a shot that beat Kaapo Kahkonen low to the stick side.
Nicola
Aube-Kubel would tie the game at 11:30 with another shot from the right side.
This time Aube-Kubel carried the puck in tighter on Kahkonen, before sliding a
shot between the netminder's pads.
Former Sharks defenseman Matt Irwin
gave the Capitals the lead 4 minutes later on a shot from the top of the left
circle after Erik Karlsson blew a tire and turned the puck over in the Sharks
zone. Washington moved the puck via 4 passes ending with Irwin blasting his 1st
goal in 48 games past Kahkonen.
Smith added his 2nd tally of the
period with 57.6 seconds left in the frame. The Capitals forward was staged at
the top of the crease when Rasmus Sandin tried forcing a shot from the left
side. The puck deflected up in the air where Smith punched it home with a
cross-checking move. Referee Gord Dwyer immediately waived the goal off citing
that Smith punched the puck home with a glove, but a replay review confirmed
the goal was scored legitimately.
Things got wackier in the 3rd
period. Fueled by his team's poor play and a perceived slight by the referees
for missing a pair of blatant calls earlier in the game, Sharks head coach
David Quinn was ejected for berating Dwyer after Kevin Labanc was whistled for
a clipping infraction.
With Labanc in the penalty box and Quinn on his
way to the locker room, TJ Oshie converted 5 seconds into the penalty. After
winning the faceoff in the Sharks zone, Sandin moved the puck to Alex Ovechkin
on the left dot for a one-time chance that Kahkonen stopped, but the rebound
bounced out to Oshie on the left post, who spun 270 degrees to this left and
whipped a shot that split the goaltender's pads.
Nico Sturm made it a 5-3 at 9:02 of the period when
he ripped a shot from the inside of the left circle after Noah Gregor left a
drop pass to him as the two raced in on net.
Any idea of the Sharks
mounting a comeback were dispatched 9 seconds after Sturm's goal when Ovechkin
scored his 34th goal of the season. The Capitals had just won the faceoff at
center ice, when Tom Wilson found Ovechkin streaking up the right wing. Sharks
defenseman Mario Ferraro turned to the inside as he tried to cover the Capitals
captain when he should have pivoted to the outside. That mistake allowed
Ovechkin to rip a shot from the right dot that caught the inside of the left
post.
Ovechkin added his 2nd tally of the game with just under 4
minutes to play. Rookie Vincent Iorio carried the puck around the back of the
net and fed the Russian sniper around the left post. Ovechkin quickly lifted
the puck to the upper right corner of the net to narrow the gap between his 815
career NHL goals and Wayne Gretzky's record of 894 tallies.
Strome
capped the game's scoring at 17:30 after Steven Lorentz made a bad pass in his
own zone. Milano intercepted it and forwarded it to an unguarded Strome in
front of the net. At that point it was shooting fish in a barrel.
Game Notes: * Defenseman Radim Simek was injured in the middle
period blocking an Alexander Ovechkin shot. He did not return.
* The
Sharks finished their season long 7-game homestand with a 1-5-1 record. They
now hit the road for three games that will take them through Winnipeg, Colorado
and St Louis.
* Matt Benning, Fabian Zetterlund, Marc-Edouard Vlasic,
Tomas Hertl, and William Eklund all finished the game with a -3 plus/minus.
* Eklund made his first appearance of the season for the Sharks after
being recalled from the Barracuda on Friday. The rookie finished with an assist
on 4 shots, and added a hit and blocked shot.
* Erik Karlsson
continued his impressive offensive output, by adding a pair of assists. The
pushed his total point output to 80. He has 19 games to hit the illustrious 100
point mark.
