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Too much Sobotka beat the Sharks |
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The Sharks played strong and hard for a solid forty minutes, which isn’t enough to win in today’s NHL as the Blues’ came from behind to earn two points with an overtime victory.
“It’s a tough one to take” said Logan Couture afterwards.
“Obviously a 3-1 lead going into the third you don’t want to give it up. It’s tough right now to get over, but we have a game tomorrow we have to focus on.”
The story was Vladimir Sobotka’s natural hat trick and Patrick Berglund’s overtime winner as St. Louis overcame a 3-1 deficit. The other noteworthy tidbit from Saturday’s matinee is this was the Blues’ fifth straight win at the HP Pavilion. They are comfortable playing here which doesn’t bode well for playoff hockey.
The Sharks would do best to forget about the third and fourth periods entirely. They recorded six shots on net in the third and overtime. They were constantly hemmed into their own zone and on top of that Antti Niemi was off letting in two goals 1:20 apart.
Niemi was then pulled for back-up Alex Stalock who was called up to replace an injured Thomas Greiss.
“I thought he was off his angle two goals in a row” said Coach Todd McLellan when asked about his decision to pull his starting goalie.
“You could feel our team sag at that point and we needed to do something, we had two options. We could pull the goalie or we could use a time-out.
“You can walk into that locker room and everybody will tell you how important Nemo is to our team and how much he has meant. He’s been our most valuable player to this point but tonight he struggled a little bit, and unfortunately we couldn’t pull him out.”
The momentum switched in between the second and third periods and there was no denying that. The Blues were the better team in the last twenty plus minutes and the Sharks gave up some really good scoring chances.
Shortly after Stalock came into the game he made a clutch save on a 2 on 1 break with a highlight reel glove save.
We knew that the Shark’s game had slipped when they gave up a 3 on1 break with 6 seconds left in the third period. Those types of errors will kill a team and Saturday afternoon they did.
The Sharks came out in the first period banging with a purpose. They outhit the Blues 19-5 in the opening twenty. Everybody was throwing their weight around, including Patrick Marleau whose big check on the Blues’ captain David Backes energized the sell-out crowd at the Shark Tank.
Today’s matinee marked the return of Sharks’ forward Tommy Wingels. Wingels missed the last five games after a huge collision into the end boards in Dallas.
Wingels was inserted onto the top line with Joe Thornton and Logan Couture and factored in on the Sharks’ first goal. Number fifty-seven drove the net hard with a power move and Logan Couture put himself in the right position at the right time to score his ninth of the year on the rebound.
San Jose did a number of things right today which they can take into tomorrow evening’s game. First off the Sharks got some depth scoring from Scott Gomez who potted his second goal of the season. Gomez’ goal, like Couture’s came on the rebound and Scott buried it when he saw his opportunity. He followed it up with an assist on Matt Irwin’s power play marker.
The second contributing factor to today’s success was the power play came through with a goal from the second unit which is huge. Coming into today’s match-up San Jose’s power play was 3-42 in the last 10 games. Matt Irwin scored his second goal of the year on a puck that had eyes for the top corner. That goal was only the second this year that the second group has scored.
Scoring details
1st period
STL – 4:51 –EV – 17 V.Sobotka(5) – assists – 22 K.Shattenkirk(16), 6 W.Redden(1)
SJ – 15:19 - EV – 39 L.Couture(9) – assists – 57 T.Wingels(5), 52 M.Irwin(2)
2nd period
SJ – 7:45 -EV – 23 S.Gomez(2) – assists – 29 R.Clowe(7), 15 J.Sheppard(3)
SJ – 16:31 –PP – 52 M.Irwin(2) – assists – 61 J.Braun(2), 23 S.Gomez(3)
3rd period
STL – 4:18 –EV – 17 V.Sobotka(6) – assists – 4 K.Russel(2), 46 R.Polak(3)
STL – 5:38 –PP – 17 V.Sobotka(7) – assists – 25 C.Stewart(12), 22 K.Shattenkirk(17)
Overtime
STL – 1:12 –EV – 21 P.Berglund(12) – assists – 5 B.Jackman(6), 27 A.Pietrangelo(12)
Turning point
The turning point in this game was Sobotka’s second goal which came less than five minutes into the third period, but the Jekyll and Hyde performance we saw from the Sharks or momentum swing came in between the second and third periods. It was though they drank the bad water during intermission and never recovered.
Contenders & Pretenders
Contenders
Vladimir Sobotka – is the easy choice for the first Contender of the game. Sobotka not only scored a natural hat trick (three in a row), but he contributed on the penalty kill by winning some key draws.
Kevin Shattenkirk – makes the list for taking a slap shot to the head and returning shortly after. Showing that kind of toughness will always get you on the list but Shattenkirk also added two helpers.
Patrick Marleau – was flying today and threw some big hits out there. He shut down the David Backes line and created some scoring opportunities. Patty needs to bring that effort every night.
Pretenders
Antti Niemi – was subpar today and it is not common that he finds himself on the Pretender’s list this year, but this afternoon he was worthy. Niemi lost his focus in between periods two and three, along with the rest of his team.
Dan Boyle – didn’t stand out Saturday afternoon except for the turnover in his own end that led to the game winning goal. Boyle wasn’t moving his feet today and when he doesn’t play well that is the first thing to go.
The Sharks are back to business tomorrow in Denver Colorado as they try their luck against the Avalanche. That game starts at 5 pm.
Keep your sticks on the ice,
Cam Gore
San Jose Sharks Blogger • 
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