Even before San Jose scored its first goal, you could have predicted Tuesday night’s skirmish against the Tampa Bay Lightning was going to be a blowout. Tampa’s third-string goaltender, Karri Ramo, was making his third start of the season, and brandished a shabby 3.41 goals against average and .898 save percentage. The Lightning were playing the second of back-to-back nights, coming off a physical 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings. The Sharks were playing at HP Pavilion, where they’re a stunning and nearly incomprehensible 19-0-2. Not only was the deck stacked in the Sharks’ favor, but they had an ace up each sleeve and another two in their back pockets.
“We were fortunate to take advantage of a team that was tired and wounded,” said Sharks head coach Todd McLellan.
Returning home from a recent three-game road trip that saw them carve two victories off Western Conference foes, the Sharks put together their most decisive victory in nearly a month. It’s hard to imagine, but the Sharks made a 7-1 victory look pretty casual. They dominated everything but a 10-minute stretch to start the second period, put 42 shots of varying degrees of difficulty on goal, and made sure Evgeni Nabokov didn’t face anything more dangerous than a couple deflections.
“He was really good when we had a couple breakdowns early and came up big when he had to be,” McLellan said. “He was not exceptional by any means because he didn’t get tested all that much.”
With Team Canada executive director Steve Yzerman watching from the rafters, Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau displayed a strong case for inclusion on the 2010 Olympic team. Thornton finished with two goals and an assist, while Marleau recorded two assists, leaving him with 25 on the season. But Yzerman had to be impressed with much more than San Jose’s dynamic duo. Thirteen Sharks found the score sheet, and the Sharks goaded the frustrated Bolts into 12 penalties and 40 penalty minutes. Over the course of the game, there’s little doubt that head coach Rick Tocchet had barked enough obscenities to fill a Tarantino movie. Make that two Tarantino movies.
“I think they were really tired after playing last night, and it was probably frustrating for them losing 7-1 like that,” said Milan Michalek.
Speculation about Vincent Lecavalier’s future in Tampa Bay has reached a fever pitch this week and the Montreal Canadiens were in touch with the Sharks prior to the game, just to make sure the headline-grabbing center was taking the ice Tuesday night. Sure enough, No. 4 took a regular shift, pulling down 17 minutes of ice time, but a loss like that might help convince the Quebec native to make a run for the border. Sure Tampa is a nice place, but it just doesn’t get much worse than a 7-1 spanking before a sold-out crowd on the opposite coast, and the Lightning didn’t show many signs of clawing their way out of the basement any time soon.
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- It’s incredible to see players bounce off Douglas Murray, and Ryan Malone was the Bromma Bull’s latest victim. Those Eastern Conference teams still haven’t realized you can’t take the big man down.
- Derek Joslin had a decent night but reaches too much rather than cancelling man out. That Ehrhoff-Joslin pairing is a little scary at the moment, but the rookie has shown improvement every game and Ehrhoff showed more confidence with the puck tonight.
- Great work by Sharks below the red line, cycling the puck down low and keeping the Tampa netminder guessing. San Jose could have hit 10 goals if they’d really pressed for it over the last 10 minutes.
- Interesting to note that Michalek and former Shark Steve Bernier both scored their 10th goals of the season tonight. He looked a lot more like a power forward tonight but Michalek needs to keep bringing that consistent effort, because he shouldn’t have fewer points than a Vancouver third-line winger.
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